Eagles News: Brandon Brooks announces retirement after 10-year career

After nine years, three Pro Bowls, and a Super Bowl ring, Eagles guard Brandon Brooks is hanging up the cleats.

If you’ve followed the tea leaves, this isn’t a surprising move by Brooks. He’s played just two games since the 2019 season, dealing with two separate Achilles tears and a pectoral strain over the past three years.

The news of Brooks’ retirement was initially reported by Derrick Gunn, formerly of NBC Sports Philadelphia.

Brandon will also announce at 11 that he is retiring from the game … he gave the game everything he had thruout his career … but his body has had enough … he was a true warriors and a class act on and off the field https://t.co/PtCxCUsfxg

— Derrick Gunn (@RealDGunn) January 26, 2022

Brooks eventually made the retirement official during his press conference at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

In preparation for this move, the Eagles front office restructured Brooks’ contract. The re-worked deal lowered his cap number from $19.4M to $7.1M for this year. NFL cap expert Jason Fitzgerald broke down the new deal further with this Tweet:

This is done for the anticipation of retirement. Allows them to carry him at $7.1M and then on June 2nd they will officially retire him dropping his charge to about $6M and deferring $9.8M in dead money to 2023 https://t.co/0IWcwNKZw7

— Jason_OTC (@Jason_OTC) January 26, 2022

In layman’s terms, the Eagles are going to take on more dead cap in the future while freeing up about $12M for this offseason. With the cap limit expected to sky rocket within the next year or so, this isn’t a surprising move at all.

With the extra $12M in cap space, the Eagles are projected to have about $24M to work with this offseason, the 12th most of any team in the NFL.

In regards to Brooks’ retirement announcement, he shared a heart felt message to his teammates and coaches. He reiterated that it was a shame his career had to end like this, dealing with numerous injuries, while his body just couldn’t keep up.

Even despite the injuries, Brooks managed to make some miraculous comebacks. In 2019, Brooks battled all the way back from a torn Achilles he suffered in a playoff game the year prior. He started in Week 1 of that 2019 season and put forth one of his best seasons to date, earning his third and final Pro Bowl nod and taking home the Pro Football Focus Matthews Award as the highest graded offensive lineman in 2019.

At his best, Brooks was an absolutely dominant lineman and helped lead one of the best lines of the past five years. Looking ahead, the Eagles are still in good hands along the line. Landon Dickerson and Jordan Mailata are both under 25 and seem to be on Pro Bowl trajectories. Guys like Isaac Seumalo, Jack Driscoll, and Nate Herbig have also proven to be competent lineman and should each get the opportunity to replace Brooks next season.

Brooks will forever be remembered as an Eagle and a member of the first team to bring the Lombardi Trophy to Philadelphia.

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