PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - PHLY Eagles Podcast | Emergency pod: Philadelphia Eagles DT Fletcher Cox announces retirement

Episode Date: March 10, 2024

No press conference, no tears, no ballyhoo for Fletcher Cox, who announced his retirement on social media Sunday after 12 great seasons for the Eagles. He goes out on top and leaves the team with a hole to fill at defensive tackle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And welcome to a Sunday afternoon emergency podcast, Bo Wolf, Zach Berman here to react to the news that one of Philadelphia's greats, one of our teammates has decided to call it quits. That's right. Derek Bodner will no longer be covering sports. He's moving on to tend to his ranch, shady tail ranch. Congratulations to Derek Bodner. Zach, how are you? I'm doing well. Fletcher Cox is retiring.

Oh, I always, you told me one of our teammates was retired. I figured it was, must be D-E. Yeah, doing well. Busy weekend for the Eagles proceeding up. It's going to be a busy week for the Eagles, but this is big news, not just for this season, but for the history of the Eagles. Because Fletcher Cox is one of the great players in franchise history. You know, we, I said a number of times comparison is the thief of joy. You don't want to kind of compare it to J.C.

Jason Kelsey, like Jason Kelsey, who received a lot of fanfare, deserved really so. But I bring it up because Fletcher Cox deserves similar fanfare. He is, you can't tell the story of the past two decades of Eagles. You can't tell the story of Eagles history, frankly, without Fletcher Cox. He's had a great career. We'll get into that. But this was an expected outcome. The team actually showed a video of him telling teammates after the season in the locker

after the season that he was retiring. So this was expected, but it still, it still hits you. And there's, there's gravity to this type of move. Yeah, I think we can, we can spend a second on the comparison thing just because I think it frames it well. Like, and it is funny. We joked about, like, how is Fletcher Cox going to follow the retirement announcement of Jason Kelsey, you know, the 40-minute production, which was, you know, so emotional and

so heartfelt. And it's kind of nice that Fletcher just sort of sends out a message. and that's that. Like that's very Fletcher Cox. But like Jason Kelsey is headed to the Hall of Fame. And over the course of their careers, you know, Kelsey said this on his podcast the day. Like for most of their careers, Fletcher Cox was a better player.

Fletcher Cox, like it would be an interesting exercise to go season by season over the past decade and say who was the best eagle on the team that year. And I would guess that the plurality of those would be Fletcher Cox. You know, Lane is in the conversation as well, obviously. but like especially for the first half of their careers, Fletcher Cox was was dominant and is absolutely one of the great players in franchise history. You know, Brandon Graham, Jason Kelsey, Fletcher Cox, those guys are one, two, three, all time in games played. Now Cox is tied with David Acres, but like that says a lot.

His durability was unbelievable. Never missed more than two games in a season. His longevity was unbelievable. You know, we sort of hemmed in Hong Kong. odd about bringing him back a couple times in recent history. But last year, I think it says a lot about the team and Fletcher Cox, that he was the best player on the defense by my eyes over the course of the season last season, still playing at a very high level.

And yeah, at his peak was outstanding. Was like the second best defensive tackle in the league for probably three to five years there behind Darren Donald. And absolutely deserves his flowers as being one of the best players. in franchise history and leaves a huge hole for the Eagles to fill. Well said. And to buttress your point, he was the best player on the best team in franchise history. You know, you said like there are some years when you can say Cox was the best player.

He was the best player on that 2017 team. I agree. I agree. I won the Super Bowl. And teammates will tell you that in terms of, you know, you reference Kelsey. And I've talked about this on the show. And he said it in some other interviews, too. I spoke to him at the Pro Bowl after the 2019 season,

and I was doing a piece on Fletcher Cox, and Fletcher had a bit of a, what could be perceived as a down year, and I was kind of saying, like, is Fletcher going down? Is he still on the rise? That kind of thing. And I remember talking to Kelsey,

and Kelsey said, like, he was adamant about this in the way that Kelsey can make a point, that he's only played with two players in his career who were great independent of scheme, independent of teammates. and that was Jason Peters and Fletcher Cox. He said everyone else, you kind of need circumstances in place to be great. Those guys would flourish no matter what.

And that says something about Fletcher's talent. Like I was reading. And you saw that in like he had to play in different systems over the course of his career, from Washburn to the Chip Kelly, Jerry as an arrow, like more read and react. And then to Jim Schwartz. And then, you know, I did notice that Matt Patricia did not get a shout out in his thank you retirement notice. But yes, like you saw that play out. that he was great in all of those schemes.

And also to add to your point, I like what you said in terms of the consistency. And I would even put another word in there, which is dependability, right? We speak so much when I say we, not just you'll meet, but like sports media in general, about the spectacular. And maybe not enough attention goes to the dependable. Like week in, week out, you can rely on Fletcher Cox, almost day. day in, day out of practice. You can rely on Fletcher Cox.

There's there's something special about that. When you look at 12 years, doesn't miss many games, doesn't miss many practices, is someone who is, is like respected for teammates or by teammates for that attribute and just answers the bell so many times. And the way you framed it that he was arguably the best player on the defense this past year, the Eagles weren't expecting that to be the case, right? I mean, Fletcher might not have expected that to be the case. But it says something about Fletcher Cox that he answers the bill every week.

Let me ask you this, Zach. Now, let me preface this by saying I was going to send out a P-Rowls tweet, but I then Googled it. It's not P-R-R-R-E-A-U-X. Yes. P-R-E-A-U-X. P-Rose? I thought it was P-Row. How would you get an L sound in there?

it was told me as rouse it might have just been a southern ass. Oh, row, row. Yeah. But not row. I thought you were, all these years, I thought there was an L in there. No, no, no. It's Cajun. It's Cajun mudbugs.

P. Rows. Yes, P. Rouse. Okay. For all these years, I heard an L. All these years. That's interesting. Anyway, my, I bring that up because, you know, you did the P. Rouse when he first got drafted. You covered him for over a decade.

But I want to know. having had him in studio this season and gotten to know him a little bit more that way, what did you learn about Fletcher Cox that you didn't know having covered him for a decade? Good question. I don't know if I would say I learned more this year. It's just kind of support.

Like he is, he's very normal in that, like he'll, so I think this speaks to it, you know, behind the scenes. like, Fletcher Cox just showed up at our studio on his own. He didn't have like a handler with him. He wasn't like, he would just, he would just walk in. He'd be in the parking lot. We would go down to the door and get him. And he would just walk in.

Like, and so there's a degree of normal. And there's a degree of normalcy to that. And yeah, he, he's a conversationless outside of football. Like he doesn't. So here, this is what I'll say. Like Fletcher Cox isn't going to. you're not going to talk to him between breaks about football, right? Like he's not saying like, oh, did you catch the Thursday night game last night, right?

But you can talk to him about his ranch, the Shady Trail Ranch down in Texas. You can talk to him about vacation spots. You can talk to him about, you know, what he did the night before, like that kind of stuff. Yeah, so there is a normalcy to him that I would say. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think, yeah, it was, it was fun to get to just see sort of a different side of him. Because I think, like, in the locker room, he's like with the media has had sort of like a seriousness to him sometimes. But I think it's, I think it was nice.

You know, he did, he did get me to eat that, that like spicy, not spicy undersells it, that like stomach destroying chip. The one chip challenge thing a couple years ago, that was tough. but I did my cap. You did a good job. You wrote a really good piece when Zach Gertz left Eagles and a really good piece recently when Jason Kelsey retired. And you used a framing device of like seeing yourself almost through the careers of those guys in both those cases. And I can do a similar thing with Fletcher in the sense that it's weird when I said I came in with him.

Right. It's different. But I started my first year on the beat was his rookie year. My first, like, big story on the beat in terms of, you know, being sent on the road for a few days was going to his hometown in Yazoo City. And I can trace a lot of, like, different things throughout my time covering the Eagles through Fletcher Cox's different things. Like, you know, his trainer once sent me a picture of Fletcher and I talking at the Pro Bowl that, you know, my wife still gets a kick out of because, like, he's, like, tolerant. over me, right? And I think about it, like, I've sat in his living room in Yazoo City 12 years ago, and he sat in our living room at PHLI, basically, this past year, and you can kind of trace

that art there. So he's someone that I've gotten to know. I don't profess to know him too well, but from a reporter-player perspective, and I've had a lot of conversations with him over the years. and one thing I can really convey. And I think this is important to say because, again, Jason Kelsey and Brandon Graham, those two might be more like publicly demonstrative or out there. I'm not demonstrators right there. Outwardly, they're more of the public faces, if you will. Fletcher Cox loves Philadelphia, like loves the Eagles. He had those quotes this past year.

the grass isn't greener. But he really valued what the Eagles and what Philadelphia did for his life. And there was a theme in his retirement letter today. And it's something that he's conveyed to me a number of times. And I bring that up with the Yazoo City thing because I went back a few minutes ago and I reread that story from 2012. And the message from Shadrick, his late brother, from his mother, Melissa, from his guidance counselor, Christy Cater,

from his high school football coach from different people in the hometown was he needs to get out of here. It's really hard to get out of here. Like there's there's not, he he needs to see life outside of Yazoo City. And he's someone who really truly appreciated, like being in Philadelphia. And as he said to me last year, and as he said a number of times, Philadelphia changed his life. I think that's well said. two other things I would add one is like just

like you hear Kelsey talk about him Chris Long had a tweet I just saw as I was scrolling like his dominance I think would be echoed by his teammates over the years like they will tell you how good he was like that you know that he was the best guy on the field

most of the time and then the other thing I would say is just like looking back at the past decade there's that core four right but you know Kelsey talked about it in his retirement speech he was almost gone in in 2016. BG is much more of a sort of like happy,

go lucky, go along, get along, tell me what I got to do and he's a good leader. But Lane is a little bit like that as well. Like tell me what my job is. Whereas Fletcher, I think, was sort of a, and our reporting has confirmed this.

Sort of like a power player of sorts in the organization. Like his opinion held sway with Howie Roseman. I think more than probably most players in the locker room over the past decade because he trusted him as like as a reliable narrator and he deserved it. Like there was never, aside from the past couple off seasons, you know, there was never a thought that Fletcher Cox was not going to be on this roster, that he was not going to be the focal

point of the defense, right? And so I think that that is a thing that is part of his story. Well said. And to that point, I remember after the 2015 season, when he was, you know, how he came back in charge. He talked about how, you know, in that 2016 season, he talked about how this is built around Fletcher Cox on defense. And, you know, when they hire Jim Schwartz, they talked about how this can bring Fletcher Cox to a different level. And they gave Fletcher Cox what was at the time, like one of the biggest contracts in franchise history, right?

And yeah, there were times during these past few years where maybe, you know, he might be traded elsewhere or he might sign elsewhere, but he stayed here and you're right about the sway that he had and also an under the radar or underrated leadership ability. You know, there's an anecdote in Doug Peterson's book, for instance, where he says, like, Fletcher Cox is the player who policed the locker room. If so, you know, they had certain rules. And if a player comes to practice and they weren't in like the right uniform. You know, they had, they,

they weren't wearing the right gear in practice. Or if a player was late or something like that. Fletcher Cox was the one who was policing him. Fletcher Cox was like the guy who carried that type of sway in the locker.

Yeah, I think that's right. And also, I mean, one of Philadelphia, one of the Philadelphia area's great sex havers of the past decade. I think he'd be proud of that. I'll let you elaborate on that one. I thought I were going to laugh out of you. I'll let you go on first good thing.

What memories you have of working with Fletcher this past year? Well, you know, when he came on the show earlier this year, we flashed that photo of like the two of us looking very young. The first weekend he got to Philadelphia as a draft pick. you know, I remember that. And obviously how far he's come. I remember like, like just him as a player. Like the raw power was,

was so evident right away. And then like to watch him refine that was fun. And I mentioned, I mentioned to him on the show too. Like, I will never forget that Panthers game from 2017. That's Thursday night game when he played. He was doubtful going into the game and was just like dominant on that game.

And, yeah, he was just, he was, he was, it was a fun player to watch at a, at a position that I feel like, early in my, like, covering career was hard to really tell, like, what was going on. Like, Fletcher Cox sort of helped me understand defensive line play a little bit better. Hmm, that's a good point. For me, I would say it was that Atlanta game, the playoff game in, you know, January, 2018, the 2017 season. It was the best I'd ever seen Fletcher Cox play. to that point. And it was incredible. Like he helped carry the team then. And then I remember like the joy that he had when he got a double digit sacks for the first time because that was always like a big deal with him. So those were a few things there. A quick PHLY story. I think it was the Kansas

City locker room this year. And I'm talking to somebody else. And I get this, get these hands on my on my like shoulders what's going on here turns me around and it's fletcher and i'm like fletch what's going on he's like he wanted me to see his shirt that he was wearing he was wearing the phil y shirt for the plane he's like look look what i'm wearing and then the other day actually jamey lynch put something out that he had something on instagram the other day about a card that he was in and he was wearing the p hl y shirt so yeah shout out the fletch for reping the brand. Yeah, might be coming to take our jobs. Oh, he can join us. Isn't that he doesn't replace us? He can join us. We have a third C. I'm not Fletch. I'm not giving up my seat,

man. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So we're going to be, we're going to be live tomorrow at noon for like four hours. So we'll have a little bit more time to talk about this as there are dead periods about that. And I know you touched on Brandon Graham yesterday. There's a video on on our YouTube page that you can watch so we can talk a little bit about that more. tomorrow as well. But let's let's quickly say the departure of Fletcher Cox, the retirement of Fletcher Cox, where does that leave the defensive tackle room in your eyes? How much work do the Eagles need to do there? Yeah, good question. So two things here. First off, from a personnel perspective, I do think the Eagles are turning this over to Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Milton Williams, right?

When Hallie Roosman said the other day at the Combine, and maybe it was a smoke screen, you look at everything, but, like, defensive tackle is not a position where he had the same priority as some other spots. He said that with the expectation that Fletcher Cox is retiring, I really think they're going to turn it over to those three. And maybe they bring in a depth piece or maybe they keep, you know, drafting young guys there. But they also, they have, they have Morrow Ojimo as a depth guy there. They have Marlon Tui Polo as a depth guy there, right? So it's not something that they're really going to push, in my opinion. Also, if you're wondering how this factors in cap space-wise, you have to remember when Fletcher

signed his deal last year, it was essentially a one-year deal with void years. The way it's structured and thanks over the cap for doing this is that it's structured for him to be a post-June 1 release or a post-June 1st retirement in this case here, right? So that, you know, the hit won't be immediate, but post-June 1st, you'll see, you know, the 4.2 million in dead money and the 1.5 in cap savings. Like if they hit the books right away, you'd see 14.3 in dead money. And you'd actually there'd be no cap savings. There'd actually be a loss in cap space. So you're not going to see anything in the NFL's books on this until post-June-first. first is my guess, or designated for post-une 1st. This is something that the Eagles prepped for with last year's contracts,

similar to what they did with with Jason Kelsey. Super chat from Roheat, who says that Cox was probably the best player on the 2017 team, which we also talked about. Yeah, I think you're probably looking at what veteran is available, the third week of, you know, second week of free agency, third week of free agency. Let's add a guy for a million dollars, like, you know, sort of Cantavia Street level player to add somebody of experience there. But I do think that they probably are moving forward with what they have there.

And that's going to be a lot of pressure, frankly, on, I think on Jordan Davis to take a leap in year three. Last thing, Jack Stole, then reportedly, the Eagles not tendering Jack Stoll, but open to bringing him back. What do you make of that? Jeremy Fowler report. Yeah, not surprised by this. I wasn't expecting them to tender. Stoll, it would have been a high number for him. And honestly, given that he was an undrafted rookie,

if you tender him, the only benefit you get is the right of first refusal, you know, to match a deal. But you don't get any compensation because, you know, he was an undrafted guy, right? So you get the original round tender there. So I wasn't expecting them to tender. Perhaps they bring him back. But I do think this is a spot that they look at this offseason and potentially add to. the thing is this is not in a particularly good tight-end giraffe class. There are some good players, but I don't know if you're finding a big replacement there.

And maybe the Alberto O signing was in part because they want a few different options here and to try to figure out who that number two guy is going to be next year. Yeah, I think we'll see what happens. One quick thing I have for you is just the Fletcher Cox retirement, the Jason Kelsey retirement. Like we know Graham's coming back, but there is a leadership, I don't know, avoids the right word,

but a leadership deficit here. You're losing key guys. How do you think the composition of the locker room is going to be affected by the past week? To be determined. I think it's a real question. I think that we can sort of make a little too much of like quote unquote leadership

from the outside looking in. And oftentimes like winning begets culture and all that stuff. stuff. But I mean, to be fair, Fletcher Cox and Jason Kelsey were there last year when it seemed like leadership wasn't enough. Like the team fell apart down the stretch, right? And so on the one hand, maybe it didn't matter that much. On the other hand, maybe that tells you that like there are some rotten things that were happening in that locker room. And a lot of the people who were there are still going to be there. And so I think it is a real question of cohesion. A lot of moving parts on the coaching staff. You know, I think Jalen Hertz knows what he's doing. You know, I think Devante Smith knows what he's doing on defense. Like Brandon Graham will still be there.

But like in theory, part of the reason you drafted all those Georgia guys is so that they could like take that mantle. You know, is Nicobi Dean going to be that guy? Are they going to, you know, are they going to sign some big player in free agency who's going to take on some of that mantle? I don't know. I don't know the answer. That's good point. Something we will monitor. And then we'll get into it tomorrow.

but, you know, did you have any, I guess the news yesterday about sweat, where you're not surprised by that because it's something that we've discussed over the past month. Yeah, I think we can, I mean, it's possible something breaks before tomorrow, so we won't talk about it. But I think it's interesting from a, as you said, we've been talking about it, but from a just like a maximizing your return standpoint, it makes sense to have two things to. sell and that way you can play them against each other and see which one you're going to get the best deal on. I would be pretty surprised if they dealt both. Yeah, that's surprised. Yeah, exactly. And I think they have to say that they're open to both to keep the offers coming for both. Sure. I have said all along, I would rather trade, especially if he's going to get more or even if it's the same, I would rather trade Josh Wett. And I kind of think that you could make a case that

like if they hadn't collapsed last year and you had Josh Schwed on the market, teams would be like, well, why is Josh Schwed on the market? Sure. His knee must not be okay, right? Or like he's a young player at a position that team values. Why would they want to deal him? And there's always going to be bad GMs out there. But if your storytelling in the process is like, you know, those guys, like they wouldn't

play the run down the stretch, like we're open to getting rid of both of them. maybe it makes it more likely for teams to give you full value for him. I just like the fact that he totally disappeared in the second half of the season, playing that many snaps for the first time in his career, bothers me a little bit from a long-term investment standpoint. And I feel like Reddick's, like I feel like Reddick's body might last longer anyway, even though he's older. But sweat has been very durable so far in his career.

So I'm not surprised that they're taking calls on him because I think that's what a smart team would do. I will be very curious to see how it all plays out. What about you? Yeah, well said, my thing to add there, and like I thought the news that I wasn't expecting yesterday and a tip of the cap that Jeff McLean from the inquiry, he had this in his story,

is that it's not either or that they'd be willing to move both. And maybe that's just a leverage play. But it would surprise me if they moved both. And when we talked about this actually on Shields pod, the Philly Special Pod, back at the Super Bowl, one thing we said, you know, when you said Reddick could be moved and I said sweat, we moved. We talked about how these guys were both entering the final years of their contract

that the Eagles wouldn't be able to pay them. But, you know, they had both on relatively below market deals, probably more so reddick than sweat, but still sweat was below market, and that both these guys are going to want big deals. And you can't have two edge rushers paid what they're going to pay these guys. So the fact that they would move both, that would come as a surprise. But I think this shows that Howie's ready to shake things up this week. And just knowing Howie, I mean, after the way that last season ended,

it would be a shock if he wasn't willing to really shake things up. And I think as Chris puts it in the comments, he says, can't it be as simple as both players are going to need extensions. So why not trade them to gain picks and then spend that money on new guys? You know, Reddick is better than Huff. But Huff plus a second is probably more valuable than Reddick. You know, we could debate that. But I think that's definitely part of the equation here. Now, if they trade both, they need to sign two guys because they can't just go Bryce Huff and Nolan Smith as they're starting to edge rushers.

And then there's also the question of whether sweat, as a player fits what Fanjo wants to do from what he's going to ask from that position. But I think that is probably less of a concern than some other things going on. So all right, that'll do it for this emergency pod. A nice quick brief 27 minutes. We're going to be back tomorrow for like as long as you could possibly ever need us. Yeah. I should have to think of it now.

Yeah. Sounds good. That'll do it. Thank you to Julia for being a. available on this Sunday. Go Huskies. And we will talk to you tomorrow. And as always, we love you.

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