Eagles legends Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham are savoring what could be their final days together

What Brandon Graham will miss most is the lectures from Fletcher Cox.

Graham makes calls on the defensive line that require precise coordination between ends like himself and tackles like Cox. Often, Graham will retract the call ... but by then, Cox has zoned him out. The ball is snapped, the defensive line falls over each other, the offense succeeds, and Cox gets hot.

At that point all Graham can do is wait.

“I’ll make a call, then retract it because I think the line heard me, but Fletch’ll still run it,” Graham said. Generally, he explained, “Once we call it, we run it. But I’ll be, like ‘Naw, naw, Fletch! Naw, naw!’ And I’ll think I can get away with it. But he ain’t heard nothing I’ve said, ‘cause we’re locked in.”

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And then?

“He hates it,” Graham continued. “And I know I’m about to get an earful on the sideline real quick.”

It goes like this:

“‘Yeah, Fletch. I’m sorry, Fletch. My bad, Fletch. I know, I ain’t [crap] right now, I know,’” Graham said. “But only Fletch can act like that with me. Only Fletch.”

They’ve won a Super Bowl and they’ve been to seven Pro Bowls combined, but Graham and Cox will be out of work this time next month, if not sooner. They’re enjoying a bye this weekend with the Eagles the No. 1 seed in the NFC, but this coming week might be their last week in midnight green if they don’t win their divisional playoff game next weekend.

They’ve had four defensive coordinators and six defensive line coaches, and they’ve watched seven starting quarterbacks from the sideline.

But they have stayed the same. More than a decade in the same lockers, the same locker room, next to the same guy. And that might end in a week.

“You want to stay in the moment, but yeah, you think of those types of things. Me and BG’s talked about it before,” Cox said. “You just try to enjoy each and every chance you get to go out there together. Being here 11 years together. Basically watching each other grow up. You seize these moments. Embrace those moments.”

There have been lots of moments. The Philly Special. Double-doink. Graham’s strip-sack of Tom Brady that sealed the win in Super Bowl LII.

Graham sets up the locker-room boom box next to Cox’s cubby. Cox steals Graham’s colognes. He has nine. “We call it the smell-good farm,” Cox said, reaching over. “I’m about to get some right now.”

“I’m trying to maximize every minute I have with the boys,” Graham said.

They’ve been together since Cox arrived in the first round of the 2012 draft, two years after Graham was the Eagles’ top pick. They’ve had four head coaches, and, with center Jason Kelce, they are the last of Andy Reid’s players. From Jim Washburn’s wide-nine catastrophe to Jonathan Gannon’s never-blitz paranoia, they have been foundational and productive.

With 70 sacks for Graham and 65 for Cox, they rank fourth and fifth in Eagles history. As teammates, they’ve combined for 132, second-most by an Eagles tandem only to the 182 sacks collected from 1986 to 1992 by Clyde Simmons, whose 76 sacks rank third among Eagles, and Reggie White, who had 124, but then, he’s inarguably the best defensive player in NFL history.

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It seems inevitable that the history of Graham and Cox is about to end. Neither is under contract beyond the Eagles’ game in the divisional round of the playoffs.

The Eagles cut Cox in March then signed him back two days later on a one-year, $14 million contract to save $4 million against the salary cap. Graham is making $7.5 million in the last year of his deal.

Neither expects that this will be his last season in the NFL. Graham said he wants to play two more years. Cox declined to define his precise plans.

Both realize that they’ll probably need to go elsewhere to make the kind of money they deserve, so don’t expect a hometown discount.

“I’m definitely going to try and see what’s up,” Graham said, with his trademark laugh.

“Obviously, I’m a free agent after this,” Cox said. “We’ll see where it lands.”

The most complicated calculus for any general manager is figuring when a 30-something is going to hit the wall.

Graham might be 34, and he might be coming off a ruptured Achilles last year, but he had a career-high 11 sacks in 2022, including 5½ over the last five games of the season.

Cox, 32, finished with seven sacks, the third-highest total of his 11-year career, and 43 tackles, the fourth most he’s ever had.

Neither has taken as many snaps as he had in the past, a result of the Eagles’ commitment to loading the line with talent that allows frequent substitutions. Neither practiced as much, either, a result of coach Nick Sirianni’s commitment to handling his veterans gently.

They’re primed and ready for whatever team shows up on whatever day next weekend.

And both realize that next weekend might be their last together.

Pro Bowl quarterback Jalen Hurts missed Games 15 and 16 with a sprained shoulder, was clearly limited in Game 17, and he’s still hurting. The offensive line was error-prone the last three weeks, party because Pro Bowl right tackle Lane Johnson injured his core in Game 15 and, while he returned to practice Friday, he’ll need surgery when the season ends.

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And, let’s be frank: Hurts looked bad in last year’s playoff game, but not as bad as the coaching staff. The Eagles might be 14-3, but it all could come crashing down at the Linc. Nothing beyond next weekend is promised, and the team is focusing on that.

“You don’t look ahead,” Cox insisted.

Absolutely.

Still, for the next few days, it’s OK for Cox and Graham to look back.