Eagles coach Doug Pederson held his first press conference of the Organized Team Activities portion of the offseason on Tuesday and announced that three veteran members of the team were not in attendance.
Defensive tackle Fletcher Cox, left tackle Jason Peters and punter Donnie Jones are not at the voluntary workouts and Pederson said that the team has been in touch with all of their players about why they aren’t there. He didn’t share those reasons and noted that the players aren’t required to be there, but did share a bit more about Cox’s absence.
“The reason’s satisfactory,” Pederson said, via Matt Lombardo of NJ.com. “It’s voluntary program. I’d love for everyone to be here. That’s just me personally. I know it’s not always going to work out that way. Fletcher’s one of the leaders on the football team, guys like that you do expect to be here. I get the rules. We abide by the rules. He’s one of the guys at the end of the day that I’m going to hang my hat on and go to war with.”
Cox also skipped OTAs last year while he was working on a new deal that he ultimately signed in June. He was back for mandatory minicamp and a reprise this year seems likely with no contract squabbles to sort out.