Defensive end Brandon Graham plans for his 15th season with the Philadelphia Eagles to be his last in the NFL. Along the way, he has played for a Super Bowl-winning team when the 2017 Eagles defeated the New England Patriots 41-33 and nearly got another NFL championship ring in the 2022 season, when Philadelphia fell to Kansas City 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII.
It appeared as though Graham and the Eagles would be back in the NFL title game last season when Philadelphia won 10 of its first 11 games. But the Eagles won only once more in the 2023 season.
Preparing for his NFL swan song, Graham said Philadelphia quarterback Jalen Hurts is in the frame of mind to have a big year under new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore.
“You can just see that Jalen’s getting more comfortable by the day just the way he’s moving even quicker than he was last year,” Graham said on Tuesday. “I think he was probably dealing with some stuff last year. But you can tell that he got a new and improved view of just life this year, and I’m excited for him because you can tell that he is excited. You see him, like you always be on him about smiling, but I know him personally, so it’ll be like that boy is really happy with what’s going on, so I can’t wait to see him go out there and do his thing.”
What had the former Alabama quarterback excited this week was Philadelphia’s joint practice with the New England Patriots on Tuesday.
“It’s always helpful to see different looks when the opposition and the opponent throws different things at you and you’re able to test different things and continue to grow in those things,” Hurts said. “I think I’m most excited to go back and watch some of the tape and talk through those things. I think the most important thing in this time right now is just the dialogue that we have about it and continuing to communicate to be on the same page with everything. I think there are good examples of that. I think there are going to be some great conversations for us to grow from.”
The Eagles and Patriots scrimmaged ahead of their preseason game. Philadelphia and New England will kick off Week 2 of the NFL preseason schedule at 6 p.m. CDT Thursday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. NFL Network will televise the game.
Although there were reports that Hurts and the starting offense would get some work in the Eagles’ preseason opener against the Baltimore Ravens last week, they didn’t take the field in Philadelphia’s 16-13 victory.
Hurts and the starters aren’t expected to play on Thursday night either, which makes Philadelphia’s only joint practice of training camp all the more important, Hurts said.
“I think we’ve been pretty physical all camp,” Hurts said. “I think it just comes to a point where we just want to have that urgency that you want. You want to have the urgency, you want to be communicating and operating at a high level. And I think when you don’t play in these games in the preseason, you have to really test those things and push the initiative on that right now. And so I think we’ve done a good job of that, but it could definitely be better.”
Hurts said New England’s multiple defense gave the Philadelphia offense the test it needed outside the familiarity that accumulates from facing the Eagles defense every practice.
“Today we had an opportunity to get better and I think we did,” Hurts said. “… I learned that we’re still a work in progress in terms of taking those steps that we want in the right direction. I think there were a lot of good things and a lot of things to learn from.”
