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Brandon Graham Says He Never Wanted to Retire in the First Place
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
Brandon Graham detailed why he came out of retirement on his PHLY podcast with Bo Wulf, explaining that he never wanted to call it quits in the first place. He says the Eagles didn’t have a spot for him and he thought retirement was the only option because he wasn’t going to play with any other team.
Apparently, Howie Roseman reached out to his agent around the start of the season to see if he would return, and signed Za’Darius Smith instead after BG declined. BG then saw Smith abruptly retire and knew his old locker was empty:
Wulf asked him about coming out of the tunnel on Sunday, so it seems like he could play against the Giants, but later in the episode he mentions it’ll all depend on how the week of practice goes. John Clark reported he was originally supposed to play after the bye week against the Packers, but he believes he’s in good shape. We’ll see what happens:
Throughout the episode you can tell he was having a tough time navigating the post-athlete career. He kept mentioning his mental health and how his wife’s only concern was making sure that he was happy in retirement. He alluded to the fact that he was vulnerable with her and missed football throughout the season. He also said he would be in the building during camp, but wouldn’t go to practice because he knew he’d get the itch. He only went out during the Cleveland Browns joint practice and started talking trash, which is amazing. His code still apparently worked at NovaCare throughout this season and he’d still pop into the locker room after workouts and talk to the guys. He also couldn’t give up the free lunches.
He had good things to say about the team as whole. He doesn’t think they peaked yet, but later they did a blind ranking segment and Wulf asked him, “The reason you’re coming back is the team needs you.” BG ranked it #1, the most important reason, so maybe that tells you what kind of market there was out there for D-Ends and how the Eagles feel about the room right now. He then says even if the Eagles were struggling or weren’t good he would’ve come back because he believes in the guys in the room. He made it known that he doesn’t have any expectations and that he wants to still play while he knows he can because one day it’s going to come to an end. It’ll be interesting to see how a guy in Year 16 bounces back after tearing his triceps twice last season. I’m going to sound like a broken record, but the Eagles don’t really have anything to lose. If he’s not the guy they bury him on the bench and if he can provide a spark for the pass rush that’ll be awesome. One thing we can guarantee is that it’s going to be so cool to see him come out of the tunnel again.
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com