The Eagles’ defensive line retreat started with a conversation between Fletcher Cox and his trainer, Deon Hodges, about all the space on Cox’s 1,500-acre ranch in Jacksboro, Texas. They had been working out together and realized Cox’s teammates could be there, too.
Before the pandemic paralyzed the NFL’s offseason, Cox and Hodges discussed the idea. The plans were put on hold during the spring. When OTAs and minicamp turned into a remote program, Cox started thinking about dates.
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Cox owns “Shady Trell Ranch,” which had plenty of room and housing for his teammates. He picked three days in late May and reached out to every defensive lineman.
“I told the guys, ‘Hey, if you feel safe coming down, let’s all get together as a group, as a D-line unit, and try and knock things out, get some work and just kind of hang out and be around each other,’” Cox said on a video conference call this week. “That way, we’re not away from each other for so long and get to training camp and nobody’s seen anyone.”
The days featured strength and conditioning work overseen by Hodges. The players put themselves through on-field work, too. But the most beneficial part might have been the idle time. This wasn’t like getting together at FDR Park across from the team facility and playing softball. They were in North Texas, about 40 minutes south of Wichita Falls, and participated in Cox’s favorite pastimes.
“Everybody had fun, to say the least,” Cox said. “A bunch of guys did some stuff they’ve never done before.”
The itinerary included horseback riding and skeet shooting. And if they didn’t know about cattle before arriving at the ranch, they certainly did afterward.
Derek Barnett and Bruce Hector told Cox they had never been on a horse before the trip. Malik Jackson, a Los Angeles native who played in Denver and Jacksonville, wanted to stay inside to avoid the mosquitoes. And the group is better at sacking quarterbacks than it was at marksmanship with a shotgun.
“Everybody sucked at first, until about 20 minutes into it, and everybody started catching onto it,” Cox said of the skeet shooting. “It was a good thing for everybody to get around.”
A private chef cooked for the players, helping to ensure that their nutritional requirements were met, Hodges said. Two cleaning people sanitized everywhere the players went in an effort to guard against COVID-19 infection, according to Cox. When they were on the field, the players weren’t around anyone else.
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For Hodges, who has known some of the players for their entire Eagles careers, the biggest benefit he observed might have been the interaction in a non-football setting. This wasn’t just filling time between meetings in a locker room.
“I feel like that was a special bond made just from those intimate settings,” said Hodges, a sports performance specialist at Pro Trusted, which trains athletes. “How many times do we get a chance to do that? Even in the (team) facility, for the most part, guys are coming and going, or kind of on their own routine.”
Cox is entering his ninth season with the Eagles and remains a foundational player for the organization. He’s been a defensive captain and a leader, although there will be a bigger void in the locker room this season after Malcolm Jenkins’ departure. There wasn’t an initial impetus that made Cox want to host this offseason more than any other year; the key was that he now owns the ranch, so he had room for everyone to sleep comfortably.
The ranch has a 7,000-square-foot lodge decorated with “Route 66 nostalgia” that sleeps 40 people, a lake house that sleeps 26 people and three private cabins that each sleep up to four people.
The training allowed the players to compete against each other for the first time in the offseason. The defensive linemen had different training spaces before the retreat, with some benefiting from home gyms and others needing to get creative in limited space. The time together at the ranch provided an opportunity for the competition that typically occurs when they’re at the team facility. It also allowed younger players to discuss offseason training techniques with veterans such as Cox, Brandon Graham and Jackson.
“It was a lightbulb moment for guys who hadn’t been training up to that intensity,” Hodges said.
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Hodges said the group took part in on-field conditioning and training sessions in the weight room. There was a lower-body day and an upper-body day, then individualized training catered to each player’s body. Barnett preferred to lift in the morning at 7. Other players liked to lift after conditioning. Almost every Eagles defensive lineman was present.
“The buy-in was tremendous,” Hodges said. “Everybody wanted to be coached. What can I do better? Was that a good set?”
The workouts were also important for Cox, who is healthy this summer after a foot injury sidelined him last year until a week before the season. Hodges tailored offseason workouts for Cox. At the Pro Bowl in January, Cox emphasized that “I definitely haven’t hit my ceiling” after a 2019 season that fell below his standards.
Cox said this week that when he watched film, he saw three to five more sacks he could have registered last season had he shed blocks better. But he was also facing regular double teams with Jackson out of the lineup and the Eagles going through a revolving door of defensive tackles. After signing Javon Hargrave this offseason and with Jackson returning from a season on injured reserve, the Eagles have the best group of defensive tackles in Cox’s time with the team.
“The defensive line, we have to be the group that leads this team,” Cox said.
That started at the Shady Trell Ranch in May. The retreat went so well Cox even broached the idea of bringing the players back before training camp. But when the positive case numbers started to increase in Texas, Cox decided to hold off and they reconvened in Philadelphia.
“It was very important to me that I did that,” Cox said of hosting, “to let those guys know, ‘Hey, I’m here for you guys.’”
(Top photo of the Eagles defensive linemen at the ranch: Courtesy of Deon Hodges)