Eagles defensive lineman Fletcher Cox joins Sports Illustrated at Radio Row ahead of Super Bowl 58. Cox says he won't make an impulsive decision about potentially retiring.
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00:00 All right, so look, I'm gonna do a lot of smiling, but I will preface this interview
00:05 with when I was playing for the Cowboys, there was not that much smiling when number 91 was
00:10 coming into town.
00:11 So I got my dog Fletcher Cox.
00:13 How we doing big dog?
00:14 I'm doing good, man.
00:15 How you doing?
00:16 I'm good, man.
00:17 Just out here Super Bowl week.
00:18 We in Vegas.
00:19 I ain't been here before.
00:20 Just excited.
00:21 Oh, yeah.
00:22 Same.
00:23 I'm out here.
00:24 You know, obviously, I'm out here with Todd.
00:25 So let's go ahead and get after it.
00:26 Let's talk about that.
00:27 Let's talk about that.
00:28 You know, we get the attention waiting, right?
00:30 We get the business part out of the way, and then we go, we go have a real conversation.
00:35 So with Todd, who's the freshest teammate you've ever had in your career?
00:39 The freshest, like, as far as like, which would be like...
00:42 Everything.
00:43 Because you know, if you dress swaggy, you got to smell good too.
00:45 You can't be nasty.
00:47 So who's the freshest head to toe ever in your career?
00:50 I mean, I've had some dudes on the team that could dress though.
00:53 You know what I mean?
00:54 Like, you know, I sit around and watch.
00:56 I mean, I got to go, you know, Smitty can dress.
00:59 Okay.
01:00 When Malcolm Jenkins was with us.
01:01 Yeah, yeah.
01:02 Malcolm can dress.
01:03 You can't forget Rodney McLeod.
01:04 Yep.
01:05 Wavy Wednesday.
01:06 Wavy Wednesday.
01:07 Yeah, yeah.
01:08 You can't forget Rod McLeod.
01:09 Slay can dress sometimes.
01:10 Okay.
01:11 Now Slay, he says sometimes.
01:12 So we got to work on the other times, all right?
01:16 You know, Slay put a pair of jeans on and he think he the freshest dude out there.
01:19 I love you Slay, but you know, like, I will call you your other name, but I ain't going
01:23 to do it.
01:24 Yeah.
01:25 You know, I got a son.
01:26 He can get out there a little bit.
01:27 AJ.
01:28 Who's the sneaky one that can really, Hassan Reddick can dress.
01:33 Hassan can dress.
01:34 He was my teammate.
01:35 Hassan.
01:36 He can dress.
01:37 He can dress.
01:38 He's a Northeastern cowboy.
01:39 The boy can put it on.
01:40 He can put it on.
01:41 He can put it on.
01:42 Yeah.
01:43 All right, Ty, tell us about your partnership with them.
01:44 So obviously, you know, before the season, it was eight hours with Kelsey, Mulatta, and
01:47 myself.
01:51 Three big guys.
01:52 It's under a big pile of laundry.
01:54 And you know, we started that partnership with them.
01:57 I started a partnership with them before the season.
01:59 Everybody saw the commercial and it was fun, right?
02:00 It was a fun eight hours with the guys, you know, doing different things right before
02:05 training camp and having fun.
02:06 And you know, we talk about, you know, obviously, you know, I'm here with them and, you know,
02:12 Ty can tackle any pile.
02:14 Any pile.
02:15 Big, small, it don't matter, right?
02:16 I use Ty.
02:17 See, he use Ty.
02:18 I use Ty.
02:19 That's the only thing allowed in my household right now.
02:20 You know, it's the only thing allowed in my household.
02:22 And, you know, extra fresh, extra clean.
02:24 So, you know, that's the reason why I'm here representing them this weekend, you know,
02:29 so far and so on.
02:30 So, you know, let's talk ball.
02:31 Let's get after it.
02:32 Let's talk ball, man.
02:33 Let's talk about you personally.
02:34 So you've been in the league for a while.
02:35 We talked off camera, asking you how your body feeling.
02:39 How close are you getting towards that word retirement?
02:41 I think that's, I mean, it's one of them things you really don't think about.
02:47 You know, I think one of them things that just happens, right?
02:49 When you talk about retirement, you know, obviously there's really no impulsive decision.
02:54 No, right after the season, because everything hurts still.
02:58 And you know, it's like, you know, I'm old.
03:00 I can't do this no more.
03:02 But you can't put that pressure on yourself, right?
03:04 You got to give yourself time to heal up, right?
03:06 It's just four weeks since the season ended to the first playoff game.
03:10 Three weeks, however many weeks it's been.
03:11 So, you know, things still hurt, right?
03:13 You know, you wake up and knees still hurt a little bit.
03:15 You know, I flew here the other day and, you know, Monday got off the plane, feet a little
03:20 swollen, you know, things like that.
03:22 But the biggest thing about it is no impulsive decision about, you know, retirement for me.
03:27 So you want to make sure when you make that decision, you don't regret it.
03:31 Let's talk about the Eagles.
03:33 You started off fantastic.
03:35 I thought you wouldn't be sitting here right now.
03:37 I thought you'd be practicing, getting ready to play in this game.
03:41 Talk about the ending, man.
03:43 Like, share some light on what was going on with you guys.
03:46 You know, just being in the locker room and being, you know, on the team and being part
03:51 of really, really good teams.
03:52 I think the biggest thing for us is like, there's a lot of stuff that went wrong, but
03:57 you can't put your finger on what's up, big dog.
04:00 You can't put your finger on what went wrong.
04:04 And, you know, it was never like consistently going wrong, right?
04:08 It was different things every week, you know, that's going wrong.
04:11 And you try to figure out, you try to fix it.
04:13 But at the same time, like you try to fix things one week, the next week, there's something
04:17 different.
04:18 Something different, yeah.
04:19 You know, that's the game that we play, right?
04:20 And I think that's the biggest thing for us is, you know, really trying to figure it out.
04:26 As I'm going to say, like, we ran out of time, let's be honest.
04:28 You know, we ran out of time to try to figure this thing out.
04:30 And you know, we was a really good team.
04:32 And, you know, in early in the year, like, we wheeled our way to win games.
04:36 And early in the year, I'm like, man, like, there's going to be a break during the season
04:39 where we're just going to start being up, you know, 14, 17 points.
04:43 Six minutes, seven minutes in the fourth quarter, we were pulling guys out.
04:46 You know, guys dying to go back in, but it didn't happen this year, right?
04:50 So you just, I don't know still what happened and what went wrong.
04:53 You're still trying to analyze it.
04:54 Do you think, because y'all had a lot of playoff wins, like a lot of playoff wins early in
05:00 the season.
05:01 Do you think some of that could have just been like, like super stressful going into
05:05 the end of the year?
05:06 Some guys getting tired, some guys mentally getting fatigued, anything like that?
05:09 I don't think, I don't think that's the part.
05:11 I don't think no guys got just really mentally fatigued because one thing about Nick is our
05:16 schedule is like, I mean, if you was in our schedule in our building, like some days we'd
05:20 have to be in till nine o'clock, 945.
05:21 Okay.
05:22 Okay.
05:23 So you're looking out then.
05:24 If you don't have a, you know, if you don't have a, you know, that's our schedule and
05:27 he want guys to sleep in and be mentally and physically ready to go where they're not waking
05:31 up at having to wake up and leave the house at 6am and just tired and like that first
05:36 meeting you like, I don't miss that.
05:38 I don't miss that.
05:39 Yeah.
05:40 I'm sure you don't.
05:41 You get to wake up when you, when you're on your own time.
05:44 But you know, that helps.
05:45 So you still don't know what went wrong, but you know, it all went wrong.
05:48 Okay.
05:49 So Superbowl champion been to Superbowls, San Francisco 49ers.
05:55 Brock Purdy has never been Brock Purdy has never been to a Superbowl.
05:58 Let me preface that.
05:59 What do you think that they have to do to dethrone Patrick Mahomes?
06:05 Get the first drive out of the way.
06:07 Yeah.
06:08 Get that first drive right away because offense, defense, it don't matter.
06:13 It's probably going to that first drive.
06:14 And I've been there.
06:15 I know, I know what it's like that first drive, those first like five plays, you feel like
06:20 you just ran a marathon.
06:21 It's hard to just be, nerves are bad, you know?
06:25 And I think that's the biggest thing, getting that first drive out of the way, getting settled
06:28 in like, all right, it's a Superbowl and it's still football.
06:32 All the stars are watching everybody on the sideline pregame, you know, but now let's
06:38 go play ball.
06:39 Okay.
06:40 Let's go to the NFC East division.
06:42 Who is the one guy you hate to see on Sunday?
06:47 Oh, you know, I think I played him 18 times, 19 times played against him, Zach Martin.
06:54 That's what I thought.
06:55 I thought you would say that, but I didn't know.
06:57 I had to, I had to ask you that.
07:00 Zach, you probably don't like this guy either.
07:03 Fletcher Cox is a dog.
07:04 I want to say thank you for your time.
07:06 My guy.
07:07 Appreciate you so much.
07:08 Keep doing your thing.
07:09 He's been killing us for a long time.
07:11 So if you decide to leave Philly, I ain't going to be upset.
07:15 Stop it.
07:16 Congrats on everything, bro.
07:17 Keep doing your thing, baby.
07:18 Yes, sir.
07:18 Yes, sir.