No Family Feud for Brandon Graham and Jeremiah Washburn
PHILADELPHIA - For those who don't know, the Eagles made a tweak to their defensive coaching staff in the offseason with the attempt to add what Jonathan Gannon believes will be more specificity to the teaching of the front seven.
Added talent like Haason Reddick, along with rookies Jordan Davis and Nakobe Dean, not to mention the return of Brandon Graham from a torn Achilles', figure to allow Gannon to be much more multiple with his fronts and you can expect significant toggling between odd (three- and five-man) and even (four-man) looks.
Last season, Tracy Rocker handled the entire defensive line when it came to positional meetings while Nick Rallis tutored the linebackers.
This season, there are three rooms with Jeremiah Washburn being given what Gannon calls his overhang players (defensive ends and SAM linebackers) while Rocker will handle the interior defensive linemen and Rallis will concern himself with the off-ball LBs (WILL and MIKE).
“Just a little more time on task because we play different forms, different spacing, and we wanted to group those guys together,” Gannon said. “There are times where they’re going to meet together and there are times when they meet separately, but the different front structures that we play [meant change was needed].”
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It's not fair to say the Grahams and Washburns were ever the Hatfields and McCoys but it is true that the Eagles' star defensive end did not get along with Jim Washburn, Jeremiah's dad, early in Graham's career.
When the elder Washburn was the defensive line coach in Philadelphia, Graham was a struggling young player and closer to being labeled a bust than the generational Eagles talent he eventually became.
It's hard to imagine anyone not getting along with the 34-year-old Graham but as a young player with insecurities no doubt plaguing him, Graham wasn't exactly a duck to water when it came to Jim Washburn's no-nonsense coaching style.
Any animosity, however, was buried long ago, according to Graham.
“Me and Wash buried the hatchet,” Graham said on Friday. “I went down to Tennessee, worked out with him and [Derek Barnett] and we got to talking. We buried all that."
And Graham owned his part in the rift.
"I know I was just young, immature at the time, and he was tough," Graham said. "He was just tough. That was why it wasn’t as nice for me because it was tough times during that time when he was here, with coming off a knee injury and people not believing in me and people in the city thinking I was a bust and all this stuff.
"And even myself thinking I was [a bust] at that time because it was like, ‘What have I done at that point?’ But we talked about it. We’re over it."
None of the angst had anything to do with Jeremiah Washburn, though, so even if the hatchet wasn't buried with Jim, the younger Washburn inherited a proven Pro Bowl-level player secure with his standing in the organization and the league, not an insecure young player questioning his future.
"I think that for it to happen full circle like this, I’m happy the place that we are in because it’s no animosity toward how me and his dad were. It’s all about just trying to get better and let’s get this ring," Graham said.
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As far as the thought process behind the changes on the coaching staff, Graham admitted he had some hesitancy tied toward relationship building mainly but also perhaps as the one player most likely to toggle between the expertise of Washburn and Rocker.
“It was an adjustment because we love being in the room together,” Graham said. “It’s like anything: When change happens, you’ve got some resistance sometimes. We were a little resistant, like, ‘Man, I don’t know how I feel about it.’ But now it’s just part of life. Because we still meet together here and there, but it’s not like how it’s been where we all meet together."
Graham now sees the value, especially when it comes to his younger peers.
"I think it’s a good thing because now coach can be a little more one-on-one with a lot of guys," he said. "Instead of having a whole group of guys in, especially because we’ve got a lot of D-linemen right now, there’s a lot of guys getting attention that they probably wouldn’t be getting if we all were meshed together.”
-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Sports. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talker Jody McDonald, every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube.com and JAKIBSports.com. You can reach John at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
