{"id":281594,"date":"2026-09-08T17:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T17:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/281594\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T17:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T17:24:07","slug":"eagles-brandon-graham-announces-he-is-retiring-from-nfl-for-2nd-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/281594\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles’ Brandon Graham announces he is retiring from NFL for 2nd time"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA — Longtime Philadelphia Eagles<\/a> defensive end Brandon Graham<\/a> announced Tuesday that he is retiring from the NFL, again.<\/p>\n

“I’m officially done,” Graham said during a “Breakfast with the Birds” pep rally at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. “Y’all are hearing it from me first.”<\/p>\n

Graham, the longest-tenured player in franchise history, announced he was walking away following Philadelphia’s 2024 Super Bowl campaign.<\/p>\n

But then he signed a one-year deal with the Eagles last October to play in his 16th NFL season following the sudden retirement of Za’Darius Smith<\/a>, recording three sacks and three QB hits in nine games.<\/p>\n

Graham was open to suiting up again this year but wanted to have a commitment from the team early in the process. That never came to pass.<\/p>\n

The Eagles are projected to have one of the better defenses in the NFL with talent across the board, including at edge, led by offseason acquisition Jonathan Greenard<\/a> as well as Jalyx Hunt<\/a> and Nolan Smith.<\/p>\n

“They are in great hands,” Graham said. “Jordan Davis<\/a> … he is a guy that’s going to get the defense going. On offense, I can’t wait for Jalen [Hurts<\/a>] to prove them haters wrong, as always, and get us back to the promised land.<\/p>\n

“I’m going to still be around … still giving wisdom, helping the guys. Of course, it’s an adjustment for me but it’s a great adjustment because it’s all about my kids and my family, trying to make sure I’m there for that and just spreading the love everywhere.”<\/p>\n

Graham holds the Eagles’ record for most regular-season games played (215) and is third in franchise history with 79.5 career sacks. He made his lone Pro Bowl in 2020 and recorded his first double-digit sack season in 2022 with 11.<\/p>\n

Graham’s strip sack of Tom Brady in the closing moments of Super Bowl LII helped secure a narrow win over the New England Patriots<\/a> and delivered the first Lombardi Trophy to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA — Longtime Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham announced Tuesday that he is retiring from the NFL,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[117692,1421,7069,139,1418,69,4538,71,70],"class_list":["post-281594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-117692","tag-espn","tag-graham-brandon","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}