Eagles notebook: Why Moro Ojomo loves his new spot in the locker room originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Over the last decade, Brandon Graham had countless conversations and moments with Fletcher Cox in the Eagles’ locker room. At the NovaCare Complex, they were locker neighbors. But now Cox is gone after retiring this offseason.
So Graham has a new locker mate: Moro Ojomo.
“I don’t know. It is really cool to have Fletch’s locker,” Ojomo said. “But it is really nice to be next to BG and just get that wisdom.
Ojomo, a seventh-round defensive tackle in his second NFL season, is enjoying all the extra time he gets to spend with the Eagles’ longest-tenured player after a move from a few stalls down.
It’s not even just about football. Ojomo said he’s enjoying their chats about random subjects too. Ojomo wants to learn how to play the piano so they were chatting about that the other day. And he’s always happy to hear how Graham’s son, Bryson, is doing in football.
“It’s been really cool,” Ojomo said. “BG is obviously an anomaly. Not many players spend 15 years in one place. I’m just trying to learn everything, watching him practice, trying to ask him questions just about how to handle things. He’s literally like a book of knowledge.”
Another milestone for BG
When Graham takes the field on Sunday against the Browns, it will be his 200th career regular season game. He will be the first Eagle to ever reach that milestone.
Did Graham ever think he’d make it to 200?
“Nah, I didn’t,” he said this week. “Everything now is a bonus, it’s a plus. Everything that happens now, that’s like house money. I’m just thankful to be here. Just trying to go out and get a win, hopefully get this ring at the end. Just trying to enjoy this journey because right now we’re in Week 6. We was just talking São Paulo, Brazil, now we talking Week 6. You gotta make sure you enjoy every step of the way, even now.”
There are just four active defensive players in the NFL who have played 200+ games: Nick Bellore, Calais Campbell, Jerry Hughes and Cameron Jordan.
Graham, 36, is already the franchise leader in seasons played and games played. This milestone is just another accomplishment in his 15-year career. Here’s a look at the Eagles’ top 10 all-time in games played:
1. Brandon Graham: 199
2. Jason Kelce: 193
3. Fletcher Cox: 188
3. David Akers: 188
5. Brian Dawkins: 183
6. Harold Carmichael: 180
7. Brent Celek: 175
8. Chuck Badnarik: 169
9. Tra Thomas: 166
10. Jon Dorenbos: 162
“You know what, I’m enjoying the moments now,” Graham said. “But then it’s going to be something to talk about later for my kids and stuff like that. Remember this? Remember that? I’m sure they’re going to remember some stuff but not everything. Yeah, just trying to enjoy it now, man.
“You don’t get here by accident but it’s what we do. Gotta go out and win this week. That’s the No. 1 thing. I’m always trying to keep that at the forefront. We gotta win. I’m happy to have gotten here but I hope I go out and have a good game.”
‘It meant a lot’
DeVonta Smith said his concussion in New Orleans in Week 3 wasn’t too scary for him because he didn’t really know what was going on.
But seeing Smith on the turf at the Superdome was definitely scary for his teammates, especially A.J. Brown, who was inactive for that game with a hamstring injury.
“That was scary. That was scary,” Brown said. “First, I just wanted him to be all right. I went to the back to check up on him and I saw he was all right. He was doing pretty good.”
Brown and Smith are very close on and off the field and you could see the concern from Brown in that moment. When Smith went into the blue medical tent, Brown popped in there to check on him. And then as Smith was walked into the locker room, Brown followed behind.
He wanted to make sure his friend was OK.
“At the time, I didn’t know,” Smith said. “I think once I got in the locker room, I kind of seen him and then after that, everything was a blur. It meant a lot. It shows the person that he is and it shows our relationship.”
Both Smith and Brown will make their returns to the lineup on Sunday against the Browns.
Self-scouting turnovers
The Eagles need to fix their turnover differential and everyone knows it. So it’s no surprise that a good portion of the bye week was spent looking at how to do that.
“Not only do you look at the first four games, you also go back and look at four years worth of us being here,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “You do that after every season, you do that during every bye week, every opportunity to self-evaluate. So we did that as well.
“Sure, there’s common threads, I won’t get into that. But there are definitely common threads that – again, you’ve got to identify issues, and then try to put the guys in positions to fix those issues, whether it’s with a drill, whether it’s with a play call. So a lot of good discussion back and forth. I was impressed by the players and their involvement in it as far as the way – not only did we study it, there were some guys that really buckled down and studied it themselves. I was just really impressed by that and their interaction back with that. I mean, really impressed. It showed their hunger.”
Through four games, the Eagles have turned the football over 8 times and have just 2 takeaways for a turnover differential of -6. That ranks them 30th in the NFL.
In the previous 10 seasons, there have been 21 teams to have a turnover differential of -6 or worse through four games. Of those 21, just three made the playoffs. So when Sirianni says that this isn’t sustainable, he’s absolutely right.
All good in the secondary
It was not a quiet bye week for Darius Slay.
After the veteran went on a podcast hosted by division rival Micah Parsons, he received heavy criticism from Eagles fans. While Slay already addressed a lot of those criticisms on his own podcast, this week he was asked even more about the situation.
In one clip that made its rounds, Slay and Parsons were laughing about C.J. Gardner-Johnson’s giving up a touchdown after pregame trash talk. While that didn’t sit well with a lot of fans, Slay said he and Gardner-Johnson are “all good.”
Did Slay feel the need to reach out to Gardner-Johnson after seeing the backlash to the podcast appearance?
“I always do that,” Slay said. “We in a group chat so we just holler at each other all the time. We saw it come across the timeline, like, ‘Man, people are going all crazy and out of proportion.’ He was good about it, I was great about it. He was (like), ‘Hey Slay, I know you got nothing but great intentions.’
“I ain’t here to do none of that and he already knew that. We just been good, man. We’re grown men, at the end of the day. He didn’t have no bad intentions on it, I didn’t as well. That’s what the thing was. We still great.”
As far as just appearing on the podcast, Slay doesn’t have any regrets. He said he and Parsons have had a relationship since 2020 and are good friends outside of football. He even said he’ll probably be on the podcast again.
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