January 04, 2016
Matt Rourke/AP
Fletcher Cox had 71 tackles, 9.5 sacks, 3 forced fumbles, and 2 fumble recoveries for the Eagles this season.
The Philadelphia Eagles have some important things to figure out this offseason. They have to hire a new coach. That's kind of a big one. Then they have to hire the rest of the coaching staff. And then there's the quarterback and what to do with him. So they'll be busy this offseason.
A little bit further down the Eagles' priority list is trying to re-sign their best player, Fletcher Cox. Unlike Sam Bradford and other Eagles 2016 free agents, the Eagles control Cox's rights through the 2016 season because they exercised his fifth-year option, which will pay Cox a bargain rate of $7,799,000 in 2016. He'll be an unrestricted free agent thereafter.
When he was asked if he'd be unhappy playing under that fifth-year option, Cox asked in return, "I'm making eight million dollars so why wouldn't I be excited to play? Who wouldn't be excited to make eight million dollars? Wouldn't you? Why complain about that?"
To answer Cox's question, he might not be thrilled to play for $8 million next season when four other interior defensive linemen across the league recently got paid. We took a deeper look at the contracts of J.J. Watt, Gerald McCoy, Ndamukong Suh, and Marcell Dareus about a month ago, but here's a quick snapshot of the contracts they signed:
| Date | Player | Team | Years | Money |
| 9/2/2014 | J.J. Watt | Texans | 6 | $100 million |
| 10/25/14 | Gerald McCoy | Buccaneers | 7 | 95.2 million |
| 3/11/15 | Ndamukong Suh | Dolphins | 6 | $114.4 million |
| 9/10/15 | Marcell Dareus | Bills | 6 | $95.1 million |
Cox is every bit as good as those players above, and then some, with perhaps the exception of Watt. The Eagles, however, have not yet contacted Cox about a contract extension.
"Whenever they call us, they'll call (my agent), and I'm pretty sure my agent will call me," said Cox. "But so far we haven't been doing any talks. No matter what next year, I'm due the eight million, and whatever happens I'm pretty sure I'll be here, and I want to finish my career here."
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