Once considered a draft bust, Brandon Graham is now the longest-tenured athlete in Philadelphia.
Graham, 33, had that distinction added to his resume on Saturday when the Flyers traded longtime captain Claude Giroux to the Panthers. Giroux made his NHL debut on Feb. 19, 2008. Graham made his NFL debut on Sept. 12, 2010.
The Eagles used their first-round pick (No. 13 overall) on Graham back in 2010 and when his career got off to a rough start that bust label was placed on him until he did enough to remove it. Since then, he’s become a full-time starter, a Pro Bowler and a Super Bowl hero.
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And now, as unlikely as it seemed early in his career, he’s the longest-tenured active athlete in the City of Philadelphia.
"Man, it feels good," Graham said in a text message to NBC Sports Philadelphia. "And I hope I can be here a couple more years to try and get to 15 (years) before I pass the torch to somebody else."
Here’s an updated look at the longest-tenured athletes in the four major sports in the city:
Eagles: Brandon Graham — Sept. 12, 2010
NFL
Flyers: Sean Couturier — Oct. 6, 2011
Phillies: Aaron Nola — July 21, 2015
76ers: Joel Embiid — Oct. 26, 2016
Giroux held the crown for just over four years, taking that distinction from Brent Celek when Celek retired in 2018 after the Eagles won Super Bowl LII. Celek’s Eagles career began in 2007.
Graham took over as the Eagles’ longest-tenured player after the 2020 season, when Jason Peters moved on in free agency. Peters had been with the Eagles since 2009. After Graham, Jason Kelce arrived in 2011 and Fletcher Cox arrived in 2012.
The Eagles drafted Graham at No. 13 on April 22, 2010. The two players taken after him were Earl Thomas and Jason Pierre-Paul. For the first several years of his career, Graham couldn’t shake the comparisons. While Graham missed most of his second season and didn’t become a full-time starter until 2015, Thomas and JPP became stars, both making multiple Pro Bowls in their first few seasons.
In a 2015 story, Graham’s mother, Tasha, recalled to NBC Sports Philadelphia how she wouldn’t even wear her son’s jersey to games because of the backlash.
“They were calling him a bust and they were saying they should have gotten JPP (Jason Pierre-Paul) or Earl Thomas,” Tasha Graham said. “It was a lot he had to stomach and stay strong on. That’s just the ups and downs of the NFL. When you’re good, you can’t get them off your coattails and when you’re bad, oh, they let you know.”
Through it all, Graham kept a smile on his face and a positive outlook.
Obviously, a lot has changed since then. Graham from 2015-20, started 89 games for the Eagles and had 42.0 sacks. In 2017, he started every meaningful game of the Super Bowl season and helped the Eagles clinch their 41-33 win over the Patriots with his strip-sack on Tom Brady, instantly making him a forever folk hero in Philly. He still keeps a video of that strip-sack on his phone for whenever he needs some extra motivation.
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In the second game of the 2021 season, Graham tore his Achilles, an injury that devastated his teammates. But he remained around the building all year as he healed and began too rehab. He’ll turn 34 on April 3, but Graham is under contract in 2022 and is expected to return for his 13th NFL season.
Back in December of 2020, Graham said his goal was to play 15 seasons in the NFL. That's still his goal. If that happens all with the Eagles, he’d be the first player in franchise history to ever do that. The legendary Chuck Bednarik holds the record with 14.