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Bradham disruptive on field and off

The Detroit Lions will spend at least a little time this week worrying about Nigel Bradham, and that means the free-agent linebacker the Eagles signed away from the Buffalo Bills in the offseason is playing well enough to earn the attention of Sunday's opponent at Ford Field.

The Detroit Lions will spend at least a little time this week worrying about Nigel Bradham, and that means the free-agent linebacker the Eagles signed away from the Buffalo Bills in the offseason is playing well enough to earn the attention of Sunday's opponent at Ford Field.

"He has been one of the bright spots on defense," Eagles coach Doug Pederson said before practice Wednesday. "He also has had a role on special teams. He has been a valuable part to what we've done defensively and as a team."

Unfortunately, the Eagles need to spend even more time worrying about Nigel Bradham because he is running into trouble with the law almost as often as he is crashing into running backs and receivers with the ball.

For now, nothing has changed. Pederson was clearly peeved at his strong-side linebacker, who was arrested Sunday for the second time since signing with the Eagles in March, but he's not going to punish him.

"To me, it's a fine line," Pederson said. "I can talk to him until I'm blue in the face. I could sit him down. I could suspend him. I could do a lot of different things, but . . . it is a legal matter and the league could potentially step in in these situations, so until I get all the information, we go with business as usual."

That means Bradham practiced Wednesday at the NovaCare Complex and will play Sunday in Detroit.

In truth, what happened last Sunday in the Miami International Airport was not all that bad.

Stupid? Absolutely.

Scary? Definitely.

Reprehensible? Not at all.

Bradham, 27, had a flight scheduled from Miami to Philadelphia, where he had to be back at work Monday following the Eagles' bye week. Shortly after inserting his carry-on backpack into the X-ray machine, he was pulled aside by TSA workers who had discovered a loaded gun in his bag.

"I just forgot," Bradham said. "It's as simple as that. Obviously, it was unintended. I think if you read the report it even says it was unintended."

The police report said "it was clear that there was no criminal intent on [Bradham's] part to carry the weapon into the secured area of the terminal." It also said he had a permit to carry the concealed weapon. Had it not been for his felony battery arrest after a Miami Beach incident in late July, Bradham would have faced a summons and made his flight to Philadelphia that night. Instead he was taken into custody and booked on a second-degree misdemeanor concealed-weapons charge.

The latest charge is likely to go away without any major ramifications. It is the July arrest that remains far more troubling. At a hearing in South Florida that Bradham did not have to attend Wednesday, the Eagles linebacker was charged with felony battery in a July 25 incident at a Miami Beach hotel in which he allegedly punched a worker in the face. A Jan. 17 trial date was set and a TMZ Sports report said he could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

"They both were mistakes," Bradham said. "I have to be more responsible. You can't really say one is worse than the other. Neither one is good."

Neither one was good, but one was worse than the other and was also much more than a mistake. It remains to be seen how costly Bradham's actions at that hotel on Miami Beach become for him, but he knows at the very least that he is on commissioner Roger Goodell's watch list, and that is never a good place to be.

"You never want to be a distraction, and that's obviously what happened with these two incidents," Bradham said. "Right now, we have a lot of positive things to talk about. We're 3-0 coming off the bye week and everything like that. We've got the Lions, so stay focused on the Lions."

That's what the Eagles' return should have been all about, but instead their starting strong-side linebacker stood at his locker talking about a loaded gun and answering questions about court dates.

Bradham was a disruptive force in the Eagles' first three games, making 10 tackles and picking off a pass that set up a Week 2 touchdown in Chicago. He has a good football story to tell and only himself to blame for not being able to tell it right now. Bradham insists he still wants to be a good role model.

"I have a 2-year-old son, so I have to be a role model for him," he said. ". . . Anything off the field, there's not an excuse for it and it's not tolerated. It's a new team for me and I wanted to come with a fresh start and have the fans get to know me in a different way."

It's not too late for that to happen, but Bradham has already squandered a second chance here and now he's working on his last one. Or at least he should be.

"My goal," he said, "is to make them forget."

He has a lot of work to do in that regard.

bbrookover@phillynews.com

@brookob