Brandon Brooks remembers the feeling that would consume him even when he was at home, away from the team facility.

It’d be about 7 p.m. — a good time to unwind after a long day of practice, film sessions and meetings. But that felt like an impossibility to Brooks. Even if he’d had a great day at the office, there was always one misstep that he couldn’t get out of his head.

“Practice has been over for four or five hours, and I’m still thinking about the fucking mistake that I made once out of the whole day,” Brooks told The Athletic. “You can’t live life like that. It took me five years, going into my sixth year, to figure that out.”

Jarrod Johnson first grew concerned in December of 2015. A friend and mentor, he was in the stands to watch Brooks and the Houston Texans take on the Buffalo Bills. But before the game, he received a text from Brooks.

“He said, ‘Hey, I’m in the hospital,’” Johnson recalled. “He was in bad shape.”

When Johnson arrived, he saw Brooks with an IV in his arm. Brooks was trying to carry on a conversation but kept having to pause to throw up in a pan near his bed. Johnson stayed with him for a couple hours and then met with him again the next morning.

Brooks looked fine. It was like nothing had even happened.

Brooks didn’t know what was wrong. Perhaps it was food poisoning or a more serious stomach issue, he thought. He’d vomited before games previously, but this was something that kept him off the field and sent him to the hospital.

It happened again in his first season with the Eagles in Week 12 prior to a game against the Green Bay Packers. And then in Week 14 before a matchup with Washington. He missed both games.

“Those mornings, wake up, throw up and then throw up twice every hour for 24 hours,” Brooks said.

“It was tough. Obviously, I didn’t know when it was coming on or how it was coming on. Just toughed it out. Unfortunately, I let my team down, but that’s what happened as I was going through it, missing two games.”

Doctors ran Brooks through a battery of tests and determined that there was nothing physically wrong. The vomiting was the result of anxiety. Football was consuming him.

“Dude, we’re in the most competitive, most ruthless sport you can think of,” Brooks said, standing at his locker, pausing in between sentences to make sure he was choosing his words carefully.

“The business we’re in, you make a mistake, people magnify it. It makes it way bigger than what it should be. Just realizing that, shit, everybody makes mistakes. It’s the law of averages. That’s what calmed me down. And what I mean by that is, say you’re an 8 out of 10 player. Some days, you’re going to have 10 out of 10 days. Some days, you’re going to have 6 out of 10 days. Shit averages out, man. So as much as you want to control everything that’s going on, as much as you want to be a 10 out of 10 player, some days you’re going to be fucking 6, man. That’s life.”

Brooks praised his teammates, coaches and the Eagles organization for supporting him. At one point, Doug Pederson suggested that Brooks take a week away from the team to try to work through his issues. But Brooks wasn’t having it.

“Brandon sat (Pederson) down, looked at him in the eyes and said, ‘No, you’re not going to sit me down. I’m fine. I’m a good football player. I can help this team win. And I want to play,’” Johnson said.

Brooks is the type who believes in facing conflict head-on. So when he missed games last year, instead of keeping it to himself, he decided to speak up and explain what was going on. Johnson told him that people would understand and that he’d feel better if he was open about everything. That’s exactly what happened.

In a place that often gets labeled the toughest sports city in America, fans supported Brooks. They wrote him letters and said they were behind him. Some relayed that they’d gone through similar issues and thanked him for his openness.

Conversations with Jason Peters and Darren Sproles helped tremendously, Brooks said. They told him that everybody has something they’re working through and to just make sure he was in a good place mentally before worrying about anything else.

Other teammates stepped up as well.

“A lot of guys deal with anxiety,” said Lane Johnson, who described Brooks as his brother. “I have anxiety. There’s a lot of guys that deal with the same stuff.

“Going back to the combine, I heard a stat where at least half of football players have anxiety issues they deal with. A lot of people see that as a weakness, and it’s not manly to say that you have it. But the truth is, in a high-stress league, a high-demand league, a lot of guys have it. It’s just a matter of how you deal with it.”

Football players are often glorified for being the first ones in the building and the last ones out. But there is a line between having a strong work ethic and going overboard to the point where it affects their health.

Part of how Brooks and others try to find a balance is by pushing football to the side when they leave the building.

“If you make a bad play or miss a tackle, it can stick with you the rest of the week and just change your entire week,” said veteran Chris Long. “You can try to move on the next game, but it can stick with you.

“I don’t work on football when I’m home. I might watch a little film from time to time, but I’ll stay at the building a long time if I have to. When I get home, I’m playing with my son. I’m off it.”

“A lot of times, after games, you’re lying in bed and thinking about the couple plays you wish you had back or wish you did better on,” added Jason Kelce. “It can definitely consume you. Having some things outside of football is huge for that sometimes.”

Brooks said it can help to hang out with friends who are not professional athletes. He likes to talk politics or current events or finances. He has a degree in psychology from Miami (Ohio) and has been working toward an MBA.

Brooks is now thriving on the field, playing at a Pro Bowl level. He has been the Eagles’ most consistent offensive lineman this year, and the offense has dominated up front the past two weeks.

Long called Brooks “the biggest, strongest dude” on the Eagles. Kelce said that Brooks would be a great player even if he wasn’t so big — just because he plays with smarts and great technique.

Brooks has been working on the physical aspect of playing on the offensive line since he was a 12-year-old boy growing up in Milwaukee. Now that he’s figuring out how to deal with the anxiety, his best football might still be ahead of him.

“The biggest thing I realized is mental health is taboo because when you think of mental health, you think of people who are going crazy and the stigma that goes with it,” Brooks said. “But mental health is more important or as important as physical health sometimes. And it’s extremely common — whether it’s anxiety or depression or things like that. The biggest thing was figuring out what it was, getting help and moving on from there.”

Brooks talks to a psychologist once a week and knows that the anxiety is something he’ll need to continue to manage.

“Have more fun. Don’t take this shit as serious as life and death,” he said. “Obviously you take it seriously because it’s your job. But I make a mistake, it’s just life. Just as I make a mistake, a coach is going to make a mistake calling a play. Shit happens. So I laugh a lot more. And I almost embrace mistakes at this point. Life goes on.”

(Photo: Robert Hanashiro / USA Today)