After Sunday night’s game against the Las Vegas Raiders, Fletcher Cox took to the podium to talk about the Eagles’ defensive scheme. It’s safe to say he was critical of Jonathan Gannon’s defense. In fact, throughout the season, Fletcher Cox has not been subtle when voicing his displeasures with the Philadelphia Eagles defense. You can check out the full press conference details here and there’s a clip below for your viewing pleasure.

“As a player I didn’t agree with what was called on defense, so I let my frustration go”

Fletcher Cox has had a down season, but it’s hard to disagree with him on this comment at all. One of the main reasons his stats are so low is because of Gannon’s schemes, and he has hurt a majority of this defense. Earlier this season, Cox said this about constantly having to change roles in the Eagles’ defense.

“Sometimes I play in the 3-technique, sometimes I play in the 4,” Cox said. “It’s just one of them things where it’s hard to get settled in, in a game when you’re playing so many positions and doing so many things.”

That brings us to today, where Jonathan Gannon held his weekly media availability. Of course, the topic of conversation was what he thought about Fletcher Cox’s comments from Sunday night. Kevin Kinkead Crossing Broad pulled some quotes already that we threw below.

I understand Fletch’s point. I think it comes from he’s an unselfish player that has a lot of passion for winning and losing. Our entire defense is frustrated that we’re 2-5 right now because we know we’re not playing well enough.

So, talk to Fletch about, ‘Hey, what’s your view point of how we can play a little bit better on defense?’ And do that with really all of our guys on all three levels from a standpoint of, ‘Hey, here’s the game plan. Here’s what we’re thinking. Here’s what we need to get done. Hey, we’re 2-5, guys. What’s going on? Hey, I can do this better. You guys can do this better. Coaches can do this better.’

What any player says after a game out of frustration comes from a good place of, ‘We want to win.’ That’s what this game is about, winning and losing. And that’s where I think that comes from, from Fletch. So, I love that about him.

On the follow up, Gannon had this to say: 

He’s got good points. I need to do a better job of that with him. The key thing with that is together, player and coach, coach and player, how we do that and how we go about that.

He’s had some very good ideas, as our other players have had good ideas, and then it’s up to us as the coaches to get that done and execute those things.

Gannon continued to talk about making changes to relieve Cox of double teams to get him going a bit more. 

Yeah, as much as we can, we try to do that. And we’ve got some things in our pocket that we’ve done up until this point and some things that we’re taking a look at to get that done. You always want to try to free up the inside guys so they can play one-on-one with offensive linemen where they have a better chance to win that down.

People typically aren’t going to let you roll off and play five one-on-ones all day long because they know that our D line, we have an advantage over offenses. So, it’s always a blend of schematically what is this call? Why are we putting it? What situation does this call for? What is the strength? What is the stress? Why are we calling it?

We can always do a better job of – as working from front to back, how we mix those things together.

Alright whatever. Is anyone else getting tired of these press conferences from Eagles coaching? They all seem so generic and honestly, bullshit. Every week they say something that sounds great but when game time comes on Sunday, nothing changes. We need to see it happen on the field. Nick Sirianni went from not watching any defensive game tape the week leading into the Raiders game and now yesterday, he said that he accepts full responsibility.

Make it make sense. Do something different on Sunday and maybe I’ll buy back in to what is said during the week. Probably not, but maybe…?