December 14, 2022
Is it really the Player of the Week awards without an Eagle involved at this point?
Defensive end Brandon Graham took home NFC Defensive Player of the Week honors after Sunday's three-sack performance in the 48-22 win over the Giants, the NFL announced Wednesday.
It's Graham's second time winning the award this season after doing so back in Week 3 when he was coming off a 2.5-sack effort against Carson Wentz and the Washington Commanders.
He's the third Eagle ever to win two DPOW awards in the same season, joining some great company in Seth Joyner (1991) and Eric Allen (1993), per NBC Sports Philadelphia's Dave Zangaro.
This is also the third straight week an Eagle has walked away with one of the league's weekly honors after Jalen Hurts won the NFC's offensive award back-to-back following MVP-like performances in wins over the Packers and Titans.
Graham and the rest of the Eagles' defense were a force against the Giants last Sunday, sacking New York quarterbacks Daniel Jones and Tyrod Taylor a total of seven times and generating a season-high pressure rate of 51.3 percent, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
Not 1 but✌️
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) December 14, 2022
Congrats to @brandongraham55, named NFC Defensive Player of the Week for the second time this season!#ProBowlVote | #WPMOYChallenge pic.twitter.com/P2A4TOvpW5
The Eagles improved to 12-1, clinched the league's first playoff spot, and are in a good position to clinch the NFC's No. 1 seed in the playoffs should the next few weeks go well.
But for the 34-year old Graham, who missed the bulk of 2021 with an Achilles tear and remembered last November's 13-7 clunker up in the Meadowlands, Week 14's rout of a divisional opponent meant a bit more.
He was out to prove he was fully back, and that things were way different now for the Eagles.
"That was talked about, just how they did us last year," Graham said postgame. "It was on my mind to be out here, to be the best I can be this year, let them know I still got some more juice left in the tank. I'm just having fun, honestly."
Graham, in his 13th NFL season, has 8.5 sacks on the year, just one shy of his career-high 9.5 from 2017 with several games still to play.
All nine weekly/monthly Eagles award winners, again via Zangaro:
Eagles awards this season:
— Dave Zangaro (@DZangaroNBCS) December 14, 2022
Week 1: McPhearson NFC STPOW
Week 2: Slay NFC DPOW
Week 3: Graham NFC DPOW
September: Hurts NFC OPOM
Week 4: Reddick NFC DPOW
Week 5: Dicker NFC STPOW
Week 12: Hurts NFC OPOW
Week 13: Hurts NFC OPOW
Week 14: Graham NFC DPOW
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