The Eagles had plenty of leaders on their Super Bowl team back in 2017 but none of them gave the pregame speech in the locker room before Super Bowl LII.
Bryan Braman did.
On The Ryen Russillo podcast earlier this week, former defensive end Chris Long said that he was normally the player to speak to the team in the locker room but on Super Bowl Sunday, Braman, the long-haired special teams maniac, got going.
“I didn’t give it before the Super Bowl,” Long said. “Because we had a guy named Bryan Braman, special teams guy, looks like he’s in a biker gang, long hair, I don’t think he was covered in tattoos.
“Bryan Braman was an absolute psychopath and he was like our cameo speech guy. And sometimes he would just, real impromptu, start screaming and looking like a fucking hedgehog, knocking shit over in the locker room, eyes bulging out of his head. And, of course, he did look like a Sons of Anarchy dude so you were like, yeah, I’m listening. But Braman got going Super Bowl Sunday and I was like, ‘Yeah, you got it, bro.’”
There’s something great about Long mostly calling Braman by his full name.
And let me say, I covered Braman in Houston and in Philadelphia and he’s definitely one of those mystical type of guys. Really soft-spoken in person but an absolute crazy person on the football field, with a look to match. Anyone who has been around Braman or remembers his “kill, maim, destroy” comment from his introductory press conference in Philly won’t find this much of a stretch.
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When pushed about the content of the speech, Long said he couldn’t give too many details.
“Let me just say it was violent,” he said through laughter.
When Long had Torrey Smith on his Green Light podcast released Friday, he was asking Smith about the Super Bowl he won with the Ravens and about who gave the pregame speech. It was, of course, Ray Lewis. Then Long couldn’t help himself.
Long: Who gave a better pregame speech: Bryan Braman or Ray Lewis?
Smith: The amount of spit that’s being thrown around out there, man. I’m gonna roll with Ray Lewis. Braman is the craziest thing. … The world needs to understand the type of rage that can happen in football.
Long: I tried to explain to somebody in an interview the other day … because we were talking about who gives pregame speeches. Malcolm would usually talk on the field and I would do it in the locker room a lot of times. But if Braman started yelling, everybody just got the f— out of the way. And most people have no idea who Bryan Braman is but if you played with Bryan Braman, you know exactly who Bryan Braman is. And then they asked me the contents of that speech. Do you remember the contents of that speech?
Smith: I don’t know. I just know it was about blood and …
Long: … murder and like …
Smith: 300 in football.
Sounds about right. And based on a short clip of the clip posted by Mychal Kendricks the day after the 41-33 win in the Super Bowl, they’re both correct.
You can click the link here but just know it’s extremely NSFW … well, not safe for anything really.
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