Getty Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham during the 2023 Super Bowl.
There was some Super Bowl chatter in Philadelphia this week as Eagles Pro Bowl defensive end and team captain Brandon Graham relived the defeat during an interview with “Sports Take with Derrick Gunn & Rob Ellis.”
“Man, it was tough because you knew it just took one stop,” Graham told Gunn and Ellis when asked about the championship loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. “We in there the whole time like one stop y’all, we get one stop, we got this game because Jalen [Hurts] and them boys was on fire.”
Graham added that Patrick Mahomes II and the Chiefs offense was “on fire” too, considering they outscored Philly, but he did seemingly call out the KC superstar jokingly for playing up his injury.
“[Mahomes] went in there on the sideline [and] he’s looking like he’s hurt,” Graham detailed while thinking back to their halftime mentality. “Get him, we gotta get to him. And he came out, you can tell how tough he is but that boy acted good. He sure put that face up like —[he was hurting].”
Graham let out a huge laugh, cutting short his comment as the two co-hosts joined him. Mahomes’ acting performance wasn’t his only subtle dig from the interview, however.
Eagles’ Brandon Graham Criticizes Super Bowl Turf, Says Chiefs O-Line ‘Got Blessed’
In a follow-up question, Graham was asked if the defense started to tense up at all late in the game as the Chiefs made their comeback and his response went straight to the playing conditions.
“It was more about — a little bit of the surface,” Graham voiced. “Especially us defensive line, you know, you need that traction to be able to get off the block and we was slipping a lot.”
The Super Bowl turf was criticized throughout the game on social media. For example, ex-NFL defender turned analyst Emmanuel Acho tweeted out a sequence where several players slip on the Cardinals’ turf, including Mahomes, calling it “mind blowing.”
Both Eagles pass rushers and the Super Bowl MVP QB, Patrick Mahomes, all slipped on this play. The athletes were totally held back because of the field.
Just absolutely mind blowing.
Apparently, Graham and the Eagles have yet to truly get over the conditions in Arizona. “I don’t make excuses,” the veteran pass rusher stated, “I just know that that’s what we [were] talking about [on the sidelines].”
Despite his claims about excuses, Graham did add the following: “I’m telling you that O-line, boy, they got blessed. I’ll say that [laughs]… When we looked at the film, there was a couple of times where if Sweaty [Josh Sweat] don’t slip, boy, strip-sack! Oh my God! Especially that first drive, that first drive where he threw it across the middle to [Travis] Kelce, he was right there, man, he slipped. We could not believe it.”
“We gonna get that on the get-back,” Graham promised, hinting at a rematch. “It’s coming back. That’s coming back but, like I said, credit to Kansas City. It’s all love. Them boys, they played too.”
Later in the interview, Graham made sure to acknowledge that “they played on that surface too,” meaning the Chiefs. Although, he did note that “I heard they got the same [Tahoma 31 turf] surface that they got right there on that [Arizona] field at [Arrowhead]. And Vegas do, too” — the site of the 2024 Super Bowl.
Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl Rematch Set for Week 11
The Super Bowl rematch does finally have a date. It won’t kick off the season, as some projected. Instead, it’ll come in Week 11 on Monday Night Football at Arrowhead Stadium.
That official date is November 20, and both the Chiefs and Eagles will enter the outing fresh off a Week 10 bye.
That’s some royalty treatment right there from the NFL, who expects this matchup to be one of their top regular season games of the year. For ESPN and ABC, it’s also a massive draw on primetime.
“If we gonna win [against the Chiefs in 2023], we gotta go through the battle,” Graham concluded on Sports Take, “and so if that’s [the playing surface] they putting out, that’s what we gotta do. We gotta rise up to adversity.”