Brandon Graham announced his retirement at NovaCare on Tuesday afternoon:

B.G. was up there for about 30 minutes, flanked by the pair of Lombardi Trophies he won. He’s one of just four players who earned a ring with both the 2017 and 2024 Eagles.

The final list of statistics and accomplishments is this:

  • 2x Super Bowl champion
  • 2020 Pro Bowl
  • 2016 second-team All-Pro
  • 218 games played (postseason included)
  • 508 tackles
  • 82 sacks
  • 132 tackles for loss
  • 163 QB hits
  • 24 forced fumbles

What’s most interesting about Brandon Graham’s career is that it took a while to get going. He played 13 games his first season, then missed most of the 2011 campaign due to injury. He returned in 2012 and played well, then Andy Reid was fired and Chip Kelly came in with Billy Davis and a new defensive scheme. He was decent through that three-year period, but really did not find his best form until age 28, when Doug Pederson and Jim Schwartz took over. 2016 is when he earned his first individual award, second-team All-Pro, then he ripped off a 9.5 sack season en route to a Super Bowl, sealed with his strip sack of Tom Brady, which goes down as one of the most iconic plays in Philadelphia Eagles history.

B.G. kept playing well after that, earning his first and only Pro Bowl nod at age 32. He set a single-season high with 11 sacks in 2022, the year the Eagles went back to the Super Bowl, and was playing at a high level before the injury in Los Angeles this past season that kept him out until Super Bowl LIX.


Fantastic career. It’s funny to think that B.G. was a huge topic of conversation are one point, with fans not necessarily calling him a bust, but believing that the Eagles should have taken Earl Thomas with the 13th overall pick. Thomas went to seven Pro Bowls and was among the league’s best players during his prime, but at the end of the day both Thomas and Graham won Super Bowl rings and were huge pieces on title-winning defenses. The hottest argument of 2011 to 2014 ended up being mostly meaningless about five years later.

Congrats to B.G. on an incredible run. We didn’t even get into the off-field stuff, but don’t have to, because you already know what kind of person he is. He’s in that group of athletes with Jason Kelce and Allen Iverson and Bryce Harper in the sense that they “get” the Philly sports fan and the shared attitude towards competitiveness. If you’re honest and work hard and give your best effort, you’re going to earn respect and probably find success at the same time. B.G. was always open with fans and media and always made time for everyone. A genuinely good dude off the field and a great player on it.

Here’s the full presser: