Philadelphia Eagles: Brandon Graham can shine in the Justin Houston role

The 2020 Indianapolis Colts’ front four actually shared a fair number of similarities to that of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Both relied on 4-3 fronts, featured massive, incredibly talented tackles on lucrative contracts, and used a rotation to keep fresh bodies on the field in order to maintain near-constant pressure on opposing quarterbacks.

Granted, how the Colts opted to use their front four – and front seven as a whole – was notably different from how Jim Schwartz liked to run things, as the team’s starting inside linebackers blitzed the quarterback 96 times versus 99 by the Birds’ entire linebacking corps, but hey, that’s a story for a different day.

What I’d really like to highlight now is how effectively the Colts have utilized Justin Houston as a dedicated edge rusher since his acquisition from the Kansas City Cheifs in 2019 and how it could hold the key to the next stage of Brandon Graham‘s career in South Philly.

BG’s storied career with the Philadelphia Eagles can grow under Gannon.

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Assuming Jason Peters isn’t back for another last run, Brandon Graham is now the longest-tenured member of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Initially drafted 13th overall out of Michigan in 2010, Graham has played under three different head coaches – four if you count Pat Shurmur – two different general managers, and five different defensive coordinators. Graham’s been tasked with playing 4-3 defensive end, 3-4 outside linebackers, and even 4-3 defensive tackles in rush-focused defensive subpackages, and through it all, the Detroit native has remained an unlikely fixture of a team that has included his name in trade talks more than a few times.

Pro Football Focus named Graham the lone Eagle on their top-100 players of the 2020 NFL season list, and as sad as it may be, that distinction is a worthy one.

Even at 32-years-old, having just finished out his 11th overall season, Graham is unquestionably playing the best football of his career and could continue to do so if placed in the best possible position to succeed.

Fortunately, the incoming scheme that Jonathan Gannon will likely transplant in from Indianapolis had a ton of success with another over-30 edge rusher by the name of Justin Houston.

Now, normally, there aren’t many reasons to compare Houston and Graham straight up. Houston has 38.5 more sacks than Graham in 25 fewer games, led the league in sacks in 2014 with 22(!), and is a strong candidate to earn a Hall of Fame nod depending on how the final few seasons of his NFL career shake out. Graham, by contrast, has never recorded double-digit sacks in a regular season, just earned his first Pro Bowl in 2020, and may only have his name featured in the Philadelphia Eagles’ Hall of Fame, more so for his longevity than his on-field mastery.

With that being said, the duo could be used in very similar ways with very similar results at this stage of their respective careers.

Almost exclusively deployed on the outside shoulder of opposing left and right tackles, Houston played 59 percent of the Colts defensive snaps in 2020 (608) and was able to amass eight sacks, 12 hurries, and 25 pressures as the team’s most effective end. Whether tasked with executing a speed rush, a bull rush, or an outside-in stunt with a defensive tackle like DeForest Buckner, Houston’s motor was seemingly always going forward; attacking the backfield regardless of down and distance.

Though Houston didn’t take many snaps as an interior rusher, he did lineup at both left and right end throughout the course of a game, both strategically and as part of the team’s general rotation, and generate pressure from either position. Sure, he took advantage of some one-on-ones while playing next to an elite interior option like Bucker, who is the closest player to Fletcher Cox physically in the AFC, but Houston also generated pressure next to a more traditional nose tackle in Grover Stewart and a hybrid tackle/end in Tyquan Lewis.

Call it the fortunate byproduct of shedding the excessive responsibilities of playing outside linebackers with the Cheifs for the first chapter of his career, but whenever Houston was tasked with pushing forward on a one-way trip to the quarterback, he punched his ticket willingly.

Assuming Gannon doesn’t decide to go full rouge and start tasking his defensive ends with dropping into coverage a dozen times a game, it’s not hard to see Graham putting up comparable numbers to Houston while playing a step or two closer to an opposing tackle than in Schwartz’s wide-9 front.

Next. Potential Marcus Mariota trade could actually help the Philadelphia Eagles. dark

For some of the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive ends, specifically Josh Sweet and Derek Barnett (if retained), switching from a wide-9 base front to a more conventional 4-3 scheme is going to take some getting used to. They’ll have to engage with opposing tackles earlier in their rushes and won’t be able to rely on speed as much as in years past as a result. But for a rusher like Brandon Graham, who has rushed from the 3 tech all the way out to the 9, filling the role of a base 4-3 end shouldn’t be particularly revolutionary. If anything, Jonathan Gannon’s experience with Justin Houston should make optimizing the soon-to-be-33-year-old rusher a breeze.

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