Philadelphia Eagles star Brandon Graham would never be the person to make excuses for a three-point loss in Super Bowl LVII. The Kansas City Chiefs won the trophy fair and square, thanks to masterful play-calling from Andy Reid and a virtuoso quarterbacking performance from Patrick Mahomes.
Final score: Chiefs 38, Eagles 35. Case closed. Game over. But, if someone wanted to blame something … you could blame the Tahoma 31 turf that took two years to grow and $800,000 to create and install. Players from both teams were slipping and sliding all night, including one treacherous tumble that cost Josh Sweat a sack on the opening drive.
Brandon Graham described the scene in a recent interview with Derrick Gunn of JAKIB Sports where the 35-year-old leader of the Eagles revealed his thoughts on the field conditions at State Farm Stadium in Arizona. The slick turf was getting into guy’s heads, especially on the defensive side.
“You need that traction to be able to get off the block and we was slipping a lot,” Graham told Gunn. “I don’t make excuses. I just know that that’s what we was talking about, or what was being talked about. It was us just trying to get out of our own head a little bit, too.”
Then, Brandon Graham poked a little fun at the Chiefs’ offensive line who allowed zero sacks on the night to a defense that set a franchise record with 78 of them. They even wore t-shirts bragging about it at their Super Bowl parade. Maybe they just got lucky due to a slippery field.
“I’m telling you, that O-line, boy, they got blessed. I’ll say that,” Brandon Graham said. “When we looked at the film, there was a couple of times where if Sweaty don’t slip boy, strip-sack. Oh my God, especially that first drive, that first drive where he threw it across the middle to [Travis] Kelce. He [Sweat] was right there, man, he slipped. We could not believe it.
“When we looked at the film, when I finally looked at it like, man, oh man. We gonna get that on the get-back. It’s coming back. That’s coming back but, like I said, credit to Kansas City — it’s all love. Them boys, they played, too.”
Brandon Graham Understands 49ers
The incessant whining from San Francisco 49ers players following their 31-7 dismantling in the NFC Championship Game has been the biggest head-scratcher of the offseason. Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel, Robbie Gould, and Christian McCaffrey all grabbed headlines at one point or another with awkward comments.
The general feeling seemed to be that the 49ers were the more talented team and the rightful Super Bowl contenders, simply robbed of that opportunity when two quarterbacks — starter Brock Purdy and backup Josh Johnson — sustained serious injuries. It was like they thought the football gods owed them something. No, injuries happen and they happen quite often in violent sports.
Eagles star Brandon Graham was asked for his two cents, naturally turning what could have been a complaint into a compliment. He told Derrick Gunn:
“I can tell you they helped us even more about that Super Bowl game because that was part of my speech,” Brandon Graham said. “Go out there and give them their credit. Don’t make any excuses. Let’s leave on a classy note because we gonna get this back and we gonna do this together next year.
“I know the 49ers just going through it. That’s not the way to handle it because you look like your just bitter. I know when do lose, it hurts, but you definitely gotta control those emotions every day when you’re dealing with this job because people gonna take it and run with it.”
Photo by Kyle Ross/Icon Sportswire
