Brandon Graham: ‘The first week I miss some days, everybody’s speculating’

Brandon Graham’s first instinct was to laugh at reports he was staying away from offseason workouts with the Philadelphia Eagles because he was unhappy with his contract.

“But when it kind of got blown out of proportion, I was just kind of like, ‘Wow!'” the Eagles’ defensive end told Bruce Murray and Brady Quinn on the SiriusXM Blitz.

‘(His wife’s) by herself and she really needed me and I needed to be there’

Soon, Graham realized he had to set the record straight. First, he used social media to point out his absence had absolutely nothing to do with seeking a new deal. He was only taking a little time to be in Detroit last week with his wife and their baby girl, who was born late last year.

“And any time I can spend time with her, I feel like I just needed to take off, because my wife is back at home,” he said, further clarifying the situation. “She’s by herself and she really needed me and I needed to be there. And I just took a week off and I’ve been (in Philadelphia) a hundred percent since I’ve been here.

‘I had a big year last year, but if you know Philadelphia, you know they don’t really kind of go there with years left on the deal’

“So it’s like the first week I miss some days, everybody’s speculating. And on top of that, I have two years left on my deal. And I understand, yes, I had a big year last year, but if you know Philadelphia, you know they don’t really kind of go there with years left on the deal. And I know that from being here.”

Graham has been around the NFL long enough to know that there is a proper procedure for everything. If his objective was to persuade the Eagles to give him more money, he knows that staying away from workouts would not be the way he’d go about doing it.

‘I felt I needed to address it because people were taking shots at me’

“If I was unhappy, I could go talk to who I need to talk to instead of holding out, because sometimes that’s not the right thing to do, especially if you’re trying to get something done,” he said. “You need to be here and I think when that kind of blew up out of proportion, I felt like I needed to address it because people were taking shots at me and I’m just like, ‘Wow!’ But I learned a lot about some people that I thought were cool, but I understand it’s a business and they’ve got a job to do. And at the same time, I feel like I’ve got to let them know that they were all wrong and they all needed to just go report something else, because they had everything all wrong from me because I’m a guy that’s really trying to lead this team.

“I’m at the point now where I’m eight years in. This is my eighth season I’m looking to get a ring in Philadelphia and that’s pretty much me right now, because I know the time is ticking and that needs to happen.”