Doug Pederson on Fletcher Cox incident: ‘It’s a personal issue so I’m out of it’

Eagles defensive tackle Fletcher Cox was involved in a violent altercation at his New Jersey home last week that involved him wielding a shotgun, according to police documents obtained by the Inquirer.

The documents outline a burglary attempt by a man named Corbyn Nyemah, who allegedly went to Cox’s house in Mullica Hill, Gloucester County, on Oct. 16. Nyemah was allegedly looking for his ex-girlfriend and eventually damaged her vehicle, threw rocks at Cox’s house, and tried to break into the house before Cox armed himself with a shotgun, forcing Nyemah to flee.

Cox declined to go to Harrison Township police headquarters to provide a statement on the incident, according to authorities. 6ABC was first to report about the incident.

Nyemah was taken into custody in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia the next morning, the U.S. Marshals Service said. The service declined to comment further.

According to the report, Nyemah’s ex-girlfriend has been granted a temporary restraining order. The police report said charges of burglary, criminal mischief, and eluding were pending. Nyemah is expected to appear in court later this month.

Police, prosecutors, and court officials refused to discuss details of the case.

Nyemah declined to go on camera Tuesday with 6ABC’s Chad Pradelli, but Pradelli said Nyemah confirmed most of the details of the incident, explaining that he wanted to talk to his ex-girlfriend, whom he dated for two years.

Cox missed Eagles practice the day of the incident, but the team listed his absence as an “illness." Head coach Doug Pederson said Cox’s illness was “unrelated” to the incident at his home.

"The police are handling it. It’s a personal issue, so I’m out of it,” Pederson said. "I can’t do anything other than hear the results of the investigation and what comes out of that. Obviously, we do our best to protect our players here ... but obviously they have personal lives. We all have personal lives, and things are going to come up.”

At a locker-room availability on Wednesday, Cox reiterated that the illness that caused him to miss practice had nothing to do with the incident and that he woke up that morning throwing up.

He declined to comment further, saying, “I’m here to talk about football, not my personal life.”

Nyemah appears to be a former football player who attended East Stroudsburg University. He also appears to have an Instagram account, where he posted a cryptic message Tuesday night that read, "If you know me then you know my heart.”

This is not the first time Cox has been involved in an off-the-field incident. In the middle of the Eagles’ Super Bowl-winning 2017 season, a North Carolina man sued Cox, alleging he had initiated an affair with the man’s wife, whom Cox met when she was on a business trip to Philadelphia.

In 2016, he was one of two Eagles defensive linemen who were at the Cheerleaders Gentlemen’s Club with wide receiver Nelson Agholor when an exotic dancer said Agholor raped her. At the time, Cox denied involvement in the alleged sexual assault. Then-District Attorney Seth Williams declined to press charges in the case, saying his office “lacked sufficient evidence” to prosecute Agholor.

Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this report.