'Find a Way!' Why Philadelphia Eagles 'Family Man' Fletcher Cox Defined Toughness

Fletcher Cox packed his bags and left home at the age of 21, after the Philadelphia Eagles traded up in the 2012 NFL Draft to make him the 12th overall pick, and headed to the northeast, to a city he had never visited.

His mom, Malissa, armed him with a few words of advice before his journey.

“Mom told me you can’t come back home, so you have to figure it out and grow up, young man, and I think I did just that,” said Cox on Tuesday during a news conference to make it official that he was retiring from the NFL.

You could say that Cox was built tough, with family always his top priority. That was clear as many of them took up several seats in the auditorium of the team’s training facility in South Philly.

Malissa was in one, so were a couple of nieces, a nephew, two sisters, and countless other members of his family. His brother Shaddrick Cox didn’t need a seat. He was there in spirit, though, after passing away of a heart attack in early 2015.

“He’s with me,” said Cox, who has a tattoo memorializing his brother on one of his massive forearms. “I’m doing everything the way he would want me to do it, the way he would want me to have the entire family here.

“He’ll always be with me. I know he’s appreciating it and probably has his chest stuck out right now about how proud he is of his little brother, his little big brother.”

Just how tough did Cox become?

He grew up quickly. He had to.

Cox his little town of Yazoo City, Miss., with a population of about 10,000, to Starkville and Mississippi State, which was only about two-plus hours from Yazoo City. He spent three years in Starkville, a town of about 25,000, before declaring for the draft. Then off he went to the big city of Philadelphia.

He had to adjust to a fickle fan base, saying that to play in front of the blue-collar city’s demanding fan base, “you need thick skin.”

Once on the field, he rarely came off. He missed just seven games due to injury in his entire career, answering the bell to play in 188.

“I don’t get banged up too much,” he said. “The games I did miss was because I just couldn’t go. The first time I missed a game I think was my rookie year, I had a concussion. It was the last game of the season. Then the next two games I missed, it was a calf strain, which I worked my butt off in the training room to come back in two weeks.”

Cox credited his offseason workout regime for keeping him healthy.

“Knowing what you have to put your body through during the season, knowing that the pain tolerance in Week 1 is going to be totally different than Week 14, you go through it and go through it and go through it and you find a way,” he said.

“That’s what football’s all about. You find a way to go out there to try to get the job done for your team. Everybody around me knows that something had to be broke for me not to go play.”

Now 32, he grew into one of the all-time greats in Eagles history. He spent 12 years carving out a resume that could be – should be – worthy of enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame at some point down the road.

Perhaps he and teammate Jason Kelce will go in on the first ballot when they are eligible in 2029. That is also the year the great Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle, Aaron Donald, is eligible. Two of the best defensive tackles of all-time retired in the same offseason.

Cox and Donald are the only two DTs to produce at least 45 sacks and at least 10 forced fumbles from 2010-19, so it was a no-brainer that they were both named to the NFL 2010’s All-Decade team.

Cox said he wasn’t quite sure about the type of player he would become until a couple of years in, when he made his first Pro Bowl. He went on to earn six of those in a row and was a four-time All-Pro performer.

Now, he’s as equally unsure about his future, though he knows it will include watching his nephew play football and nieces play whatever sport they gravitate toward.

“Right now, it’s just taking some time to myself … just making a slow transition to life,” he said. “Obviously, I’ll be back around here a lot, just trying to help younger guys, just develop and working their game. In the meantime, I’m just having some peace.”

You can be sure Cox won’t back away from whatever comes down the pike. He’ll approach it with the same toughness he learned in Philadelphia and brought with him to the field, with his family beside him the whole way.