The Eagles hosted their first of two public practices for fans on Sunday night, an open session down at Lincoln Financial Field. Long gone are the halcyon days of Lehigh and West Chester, which is a bummer, but a story for another time.

Meantime, we had another player vs. media member pseudo-fuss, this time with Fletcher Cox completely ignoring a question from the Inquirer’s Jeff McLane:

Alrighty then!

The question is 100 percent valid. Nothing wrong with it, which means we can be 99.9% sure that this has something to do with the story McLane wrote back in June, which was titled Fletcher Cox, now 30, has power and money, but this is a pivotal year in his Eagles career. The story alleges that Cox had a role in coaching decisions on the defensive line and suggested that there was internal doubt about whether the defensive tackle was pushing himself the way he should to stay on top at his age.

Wrote McLane:


There was a feeling among some coaches, however, that Cox wasn’t maximizing his ability over that span, or taking the necessary preventative steps in terms of his health, team sources said. And there is an internal concern that he won’t take the extra steps as he enters his 30s to retire in Philadelphia.

…

The Eagles, of course, aren’t alone among NFL teams in favoring franchise cornerstones. But Roseman’s emotional attachments and favoritism, sources said, have led to player power beyond the expected norms. And Cox, to no surprise, took advantage.

“Howie basically checks everything related to the defensive line with Fletcher to make sure it’s OK first,” a team source said. “So that has often led to certain people getting jobs, and in some cases, the same losing them.”

Cox then tweeted this on the same day the story was published:

The weird thing is that Cox spoke to the media at the beginning of camp and McLane asked him a question during that session, to which Cox did respond. That was live in person and down at NovaCare. So if Cox had an issue with the story, you’d think he would have done the ignoring during the first presser after the article’s publication, but opted to wait for this Zoom call instead, for whatever reason.