Nick Piccone
It’s been an interesting offseason for the Eagles to say the least. With a new head coach in Doug Pederson, drafting Carson Wentz, the saga with Sam Bradford, the acquisition of the highest paid backup quarterback in Chase Daniel, to the issues with Darren Sproles not showing up to voluntary camp and the same with Fletcher Cox, accompanied by a contract situation.
Needless to say, it hasn’t been boring. Most of the offseason talk has surrounded Cox and his contract situation. His tweets have been cryptic, especially after Howie Roseman re-signed guys like Zach Ertz, Lane Johnson, Brent Celek and Mychal Kendricks. One guy on that list is Cox, but he hasn’t signed a new deal yet.
Cox has one year left on his contract and will make $7.8 million this year in base salary. He’s an unrestricted free agent after this season. He’ll need a new contract to remain an Eagle, if you didn’t already know.
The Eagles had apparently offered over $60 million guaranteed to Cox, according to Howard Eskin. Here’s what he said back in April:
This is ridiculous because Fletcher Cox, a lot of these guys listen too much to their agent. His agent is Todd France. The Eagles, I have been told, have offered him over $60 million guaranteed. Now, the contract would be over $100 million, but Todd France has told Fletcher Cox not to accept that and that’s ridiculous because the Eagles could have his rights for three years. The year the contract left this year, they can franchise him two more years, $60 million guaranteed, and Fletcher Cox is not a guy that spends a lot of money, but Todd France represents other defensive linemen, so, and people believe this in football, that he’s trying to get an unbelievable deal for Fletcher Cox so his other players’ scale of salary would increase and he’d use this to try to get those guys more money.
It’s ridiculous that Fletcher Cox has not signed a contract, which guarantees him over $60 million. And a couple years ago, he had some back issues and, I mean, any player can go down, so that’s the problem. The Eagles have offered him a lot of money and his agent, Todd France, said “Nope,” and I think he’s using Fletcher Cox for his other players down the line.
So Cox didn’t agree to sign a deal that would pay him over $60 million. OK. Cox’s agent said the next day Eskin’s report was careless.
I’m 44 years old. You think I enjoy people, I shouldn’t say people, a person talking about me with this kind of misinformation and framing it in a certain way? No, it makes me want to be that tough guy that you guys told me I was and throw on the boxing gloves and say let’s go at it Howard, let’s go.”
…
“What’s amazing to me, is that today’s day and age you can report something and absolutely make no attempt to contact the other party, perhaps in this case maybe the agent and ask him, ‘Hey this is the information I’m getting. Is this true, is this not true?’ If I choose not to comment or don’t respond, then that’s on me. But to me, it’s careless reporting when you don’t even attempt to check your facts that are quote-unquote, that are facts, I should put those in quotes.”
So now we have the agent calling Eskin’s reporting careless and accusing him of not attempting to check his facts. Since then, there’s been no talk about a new contract for Cox from either side and no reports on it either way. Until today.
Eskin tweeted out earlier that he thinks Cox will sign for … wait for it … the same amount that he apparently wouldn’t sign for back in April.
HC Doug Pederson believes @fcoxx_91 signs by beginning of training camp. hearing deal will be 6 yrs, around 60m guaranteed @FOX29philly
— Howard Eskin (@howardeskin) June 7, 2016
So, now Eskin thinks Cox will settle for $60 million guaranteed despite not settling for $60 million earlier this offseason. For what it’s worth, Ben Allbright is hearing around the same figure, maybe a little lower, according to his appearance on The Josh Innes Show on 94WIP today.
If I could just insert myself in this situation, I’d assume that the $60 million guaranteed was the number floating around a few months ago but the Eagles never formally offered Cox that contract like Eskin reported. It’d make sense considering the agent’s response to Eskin. And now with that same figure being thrown around, it makes sense a contract could get done soon.
We’ll keep you posted when something is finalized.