It wouldn’t be Brandon Graham Day without the two-time Super Bowl champion in studio, and BG joined Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie on Monday morning to relive the lifelong Eagle’s biggest moments of his 15-year career.
Of course, the starting point was his strip sack of Tom Brady in Super Bowl LII to send the Birds on their way to their first Super Bowl title.
Everyone knows the play, but BG took time to break down what he was thinking and what was happening around him before making what team owner Jeffrey Lurie later called the greatest defensive play in franchise history.
“You hope, on the 2nd-and-2, it’s not a running play...I knew Fletch was getting all the attention,” BG remembered.
“I got through, and all I remember is, one blink, I see him, another blink, I close my eyes and swiped it out...man, it was special.”
Clinging to a five-point lead with just over two minutes to go in the game, Graham got into the backfield, got a hand on the ball and knocked it from Brady’s grip, forcing a turnover to all but seal the biggest win in Eagles history, toppling a Patriots dynasty and setting off an epic celebration in the City of Brotherly Love, and on the sideline after Graham’s heroics.
“All I remember is just my head being a bobblehead, people slapping me right on top of my head,” Graham said. “It was so much fun. You don’t feel those taps, but you just know your head is getting slapped every which way.”
What was going through Graham’s head after that game-sealing play?
“‘We’re about to win it.’” Graham said.
As Graham watched the offense pick up a field goal and seal up the win, he remembered taking it all in and acknowledging the impact of what he just accomplished, even on a bad hamstring.
“I just remember sitting on the bench looking at the clock like ‘Man, I just stripped Brady,’” Graham said. “’That happened.’”