Brandon Graham, Chris Long relive the Eagles’ Super Bowl strip sack

Chris Long had former teammate Brandon Graham on his Green Light with Chris Long podcast, where the two reminisced about the “The Play” from their Super Bowl win, along with the roster changes this offseason, a little about the long list of injuries last year, and more.

Long asked Graham’s daughter how many games the Eagles are going to win in 2020 and she excitedly said “two games!”. (I’m going to take the over on that...)

Here are some other takeaways from their chat:

On the strange offseason

Graham has lost a few family members to COVID-19, so he said that they are taking everything very seriously. His wife had the idea for them to send 300 cheesesteaks (from Jim’s) to UPenn to contribute something to the effort, and they plan on doing something similar in Michigan.

Regarding training, Graham said he has a gym at his house and he gets on Zoom with his trainers. He was hang cleaning yesterday 335 pounds, power cleaning 315 pounds, on the bench he was doing about 365 pounds, and he’s doing dead lift and jump squats.

On the Eagles’ roster changes

Graham said it’s going to be a big change to be in Philly without guys like Jason Peters and Malcolm Jenkins, but he’s excited because with those absences it’s going to make other guys have to step up. He admitted it’ll be weird at first but once they get into things, it’ll be business as usual.

“I’m looking forward to playing with [Darius] Slay.”

He explained that when you get a corner with Slay’s ability, it slows things down for them up front.

“And then you’ve got [Javon] Hargrave in the middle now with [Fletcher Cox] with Malik Jackson. I don’t know how it’s gonna work, as far as how we do it on third down. But I think Malik might go to outside at end a little bit.”

He said he’s excited to have things this year that were missing last year, including due to injury.

On the 2019 season

“The injury bug got us last year.”

Graham explained that he was dealing with a knee injury and guys were just getting injury at weird times. He likened it to when you’re driving on ‘E’ and just running on fumes, but said that it was their belief that really got them through.

The defender also pointed out, though, that the situation made some stars like Greg Ward and Boston Scott.

“I knew how good [Scott] was in practice, you know what I’m saying, but they never gave him the opportunity — because, obviously, the political part of this game.”

Long and Graham then joked a bit about politics in football and how sometimes the best guys can be on the bench because he wasn’t a player who went in the first few rounds of the NFL Draft.

Graham said he was excited to see the young guys get some respect because they were always hard workers in practice. Long pointed out that Greg Ward would give them fits on the scout team, and Graham said he often “Moss’ed” the defenders in practice.

On the toughest loss

Graham said that the most embarrassing moment of the 2019 season was the loss to Dallas, especially after they were talking shit, but the ride home from the Miami loss was another rough one. He explained that the Dolphins were probably the worst team they lost to because of their record, but they were a good team and were well-coached.

Long was doing a live watch with the fans for the Dallas game and said after the first quarter he wanted to get out of there because the environment was so intense. Graham has never been on that side of things, sitting at a bar and watching an Eagles game, and Long quipped that he would have rather been on the field losing to the Cowboys.

Long and Graham both called that division loss the worst of the season, but on the other end of the spectrum, BG said the win over Dallas in their second meeting was the best.

On the Super Bowl strip sack

They talked about Graham’s strip sack against Tom Brady and how incredible that play was. Graham said that the way the ball bounced into Derek Barnett’s hands for the scoop and recovery was a sign the Eagles were meant to win that game.

“Man, that was the best moment ever, for all of us.”

On the sideline before that happened, Long remembered Lane Johnson and some guys came over to them and asked them to get a stop.

Long asked Graham if that was the best play in Philly sports history and Graham said yes, because it led to the Super Bowl win. Long went on to say that all the Philly teams are great, but the one Championship the city really needed, was from football.

Other notables

• Graham said that Eagles’ defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz was not into the Amazon series “All or Nothing” from the 2019 season and didn’t want to talk to them. Fletcher Cox was another guy who just wasn’t super into being filmed and was specific about what he’d do. He did say one positive was that the Eagles had ultimate control about what ultimately went into each episode, and Graham respected that they wouldn’t let the players look bad.
• He was quick to admit that he’d love for the Eagles to bring back the kelly green uniforms.

“Yes. I would love for them to bring that back. I wore that my first game of my career, my rookie year against Green Bay — the year Green Bay won it all. We wore them out, the throwbacks, the first game and I ain’t ever seen them again. But, man, those pants are so sweet. It’s like a little cream, with the green, and the helmet...”

• Some of Graham’s favorite jerseys he has up in his house are from former teammates. The best message he ever got though, was from Kenjon Barner. Barner was down when he got cut, but Graham told him that you never know and he could be back — then Darren Sproles got injured and Barner was re-signed and thanks Graham for his support.
• He learned early on in his career not to spend too much time on social media, and doesn’t have time for the back and forth with people — hence why he’s blocked so many people on Twitter.
• Graham named Troy the janitor as the most under-rated Eagles’ staffer, but he’s been there for a long time and has seen a lot of stuff. Troy has a lot of wisdom and Graham always really likes talking to him. Long and Graham both said that one of the best things about the organization is that they can vouch for people from top to bottom.
• In a fight between Howie Roseman and Jake Elliott, they both took Elliott.
• Graham also said that his favorite person to sack is Cowboys’ QB Dak Prescott.