Philadelphia Eagles may be forced to start 2018 season without Brandon Graham

(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /
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After having ankle surgery, there’s a chance Brandon Graham could be out longer than expected for the Philadelphia Eagles.

As the Philadelphia Eagles continue to make the necessary moves this offseason to give them a better chance of repeating as Super Bowl champions next year, the team still has plenty of factors that are unfortunately out of their control in the injury department.

Between Carson Wentz continuing to recover from his torn ACL to Alshon Jeffery hoping to be ready for Week 1 as well following surgery on his torn rotator cuff, the Eagles will have quite the challenge ahead of them come September.

Not to mention, it looks like Philadelphia can add Brandon Graham to their list of players dealing with injuries after the defensive star recently had surgery on his right ankle. Turns out, this surgery was conducted to take care of an ankle injury that Graham originally suffered on Christmas when the Eagles squared off against the Oakland Raiders, and it seemed like missing spring workouts was the only concern.

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However, a follow up report by John Barchard the possibility of Graham’s recovery time possibly impacting the start of the regular season. While the Eagles have plenty of talented players willing to step up if this were to be the case, losing Graham would still be a significant blow to the defensive side of the football.

Of course, this is similar to the situations with Wentz and Jeffery in which it’s still way too early to tell what to expect since a lot could happen over the next few months with Graham. For now, the best thing Philadelphia can do is be patient with Graham to make sure he doesn’t suffer any setbacks.

Also, as Barchard mentioned in his statement, the news on Graham explains why the Eagles have been busy this offseason when it comes to adding depth to the defensive line. Give Philadelphia credit for taking the better safe than sorry approach since this shows they will at least be prepared if Graham’s absence lasts longer than originally expected.

Then again, when looking at how successful Philadelphia still was last season when dealing with numerous key injuries, and their ability to overcome just about anything, there’s really no reason to hit the panic button over Graham.

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At the end of the day, the important factor is Graham focuses on getting healthy these next few months, and when he is in fact ready to return, it’s only going to boost the Eagles’ defense with another dangerous weapon.