After the loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night, Eagles center Jason Kelce is planning to retire, sources told The Inquirer. A Philadelphia sports legend, Kelce spent his entire 13-year NFL career with the Birds, starting 193 games and helping win the franchise’s first Super Bowl.
The Inquirer has covered Kelce from the beginning of his career as a sixth-round draft pick out of Cincinnati throughout his journey to becoming a likely first-ballot Hall of Fame player.
Here are some highlights from our coverage of Kelce’s career and the moments that made him a Philadelphia legend:
Mike Sielski wrote about how Kelce’s time guest bartending at the Ocean Drive in Sea Isle summed up why he’s so beloved in Philadelphia ...
Some athletes answer questions. Jason Kelce delivers lectures worthy of a college-level course. The topic of that course, loosely speaking, is the relationship between the people who root for Philadelphia’s sports teams and the people who play for Philadelphia’s sports teams.
Class is in session whenever someone asks him about his relationship to Eagles fans and to the city as a whole. Or whenever someone asks him about an athlete or athletes who have failed to connect with or faced the ire of the market’s fans and media. Or whenever he does what he did Wednesday: spend the day here, appearing on WIP 94.1 FM in the morning before guest-bartending at the Ocean Drive in the late afternoon to raise money for autism research.
Mike Sielski
» READ MORE: Jason Kelce told me that Wednesdays were wearing on him. There’s more to his impending retirement than that. | Marcus Hayes
Matt Breen went back to Kelce’s days in high school band in Cleveland Heights to show how his saxophone prowess helped him become a better football player ...
[Former Cleveland Heights football coach Mike] Jones worked with Brett Baker, the school’s music director, to make sure Kelce could play football and the sax. The school, like the Kelce parents, implored students to do as much as they could.
“He encouraged guys to play sports and band,” Kelce said of Baker. “I always felt like at Cleveland Heights that there wasn’t this separation between band and athletics. All of my best friends and the guys I hung out with, did both.”
“The band works hard and late hours,” Jones said. “It’s a heck of a commitment when you have to go to practice after you’re getting out of practice. He balanced his studies and he’s just a well-rounded person. What he did has helped him become the man that he is today. He was passionate about all those things and worked everything out.”
Matt Breen
Breen also went back to Cincinnati and talked with Kelce’s college coach, Brian Kelly, about how a position change sparked his growth into an elite player ...
Jason Kelce had yet to see the field in college when he left the weight room at the University of Cincinnati near the end of his first year on campus. He redshirted his freshman season, hoping his work on the practice field would be enough to impress the coaches who urged him to enroll without a scholarship and walk on to the team.
But the coaching staff left for bigger jobs and their replacements were outside the weight room, waiting to ask Kelce if he would try a new position. He would be a better fit, they said, as an offensive lineman, a position he never played in high school where he was a standout — but undersized — linebacker.
Kelce is now preparing for his second Super Bowl and writing the final chapters of a career that will have him remembered as one of the Eagles’ all-time finest linemen. But back then he was just a 19-year-old with student debt and nothing to lose. Sure, he told his new coaches, but where’s my scholarship?
Matt Breen
» READ MORE: The Eagles have raised $3 million with ‘A Philly Special Christmas Special’
Marcus Hayes asked the Eagles’ offensive linemen for their best Jason Kelce stories. Here’s one (but you’re going to want to hear the Lake Lanier story) ...
“Kelce comes over and says, ‘Put your helmet on. I’m going to play tackle, and you’re going to play a 3-tech [defensive lineman].’ So I played 3-tech. We ran up the cadence ...
“And he just buried his head into my head, bruh. I got [bleeped] up. I got [bleeped] up. He literally took me out [Mailata snaps his head backward]. It was almost like targeting, man. I said, ‘Yo, [expletive]!’ He just looked at me and said, ‘Just put your head in there.’
“Then he went and played 3-tech. Across from me. And I did it to him.
“And he gets up and says, ‘There it is! There it is! Just keep doing that, over and over again! Bury your head in there! Get behind it! It’ll bring your hips into it!’
“And that’s how he taught me how to combination-block.”
Jordan Mailata
Kelce set the record for most consecutive regular-season starts in franchise history this year. Olivia Reiner talked to a few Eagles and former record-holder Jon Runyan to see how he did it ...
His detailed preparation off the field translates to his consistent performance on the field. Through five games this season, Kelce has played 373 offensive snaps and has not allowed a sack, according to Pro Football Focus. He has allowed only two pressures total — one hit and one hurry.
Backup right guard Sua Opeta, who started his first game of the season alongside Kelce against the Rams, said that Kelce’s “relentless effort” on the field is a quality that he tries to emulate.
“The man doesn’t have any quit in him,” Opeta said. “He just fights and fights and fights and seeing that on a day-to-day basis is really inspiring and makes me want to play harder.”
Olivia Reiner
» READ MORE: Jason Kelce’s career with the Eagles, by the numbers
EJ Smith wrote about Kelce’s toughness after a signature performance in Arizona last season ...
The 34-year-old missed part of the second quarter getting X-rays on his ankle but jogged onto the field with the team coming out of halftime. He played the entire second half and helped propel the Eagles’ run-heavy final series, which gave them the lead and drained nearly eight minutes off the clock.
While Kelce downplayed the severity of the injury after the game, his teammates explained the significance of one of the team’s most prominent leaders once again displaying his toughness.
“If that doesn’t get you going, then you don’t have a pulse,” said Jack Driscoll, the starting left tackle for the Eagles on Sunday. “He was down, but Kelce’s one of the toughest ... SOBs I’ve ever met. ... To see him come back and play just really got everyone fired up.”
EJ Smith
Jeff McLane wrote about why Kelce’s emotional side made him perfect for Philadelphia ...
Jason Kelce isn’t afraid to cry.
Furthermore, the Eagles center isn’t afraid to let others see him cry.
“I’m a pretty emotional person,” Kelce said recently. “I feel like I’m pretty stoic until I’m not and then it all comes out. Guys around here know I get pretty emotional talking to the team. Even just listening to a sad country song, yeah, I can get pretty emotional.”
Jeff McLane
» READ MORE: Eagles players discuss Jason Kelce’s impact after last game: ‘He’s a legend in the city, really in the league’
McLane wrote about Kelce taking accountability early in his career with then-coach Chip Kelly, a trait that also helped him become one of Philadelphia’s most beloved athletes ...
But after Sunday’s dreadful loss to the Cowboys — and his worst outing since the Giants game — Kelce once again felt compelled to address his coach. He waited outside Kelly’s office in the Eagles’ locker room at Lincoln Financial Field long after most of his teammates had left.
Kelce’s message to his coach, as he summarized on Tuesday:
"I feel embarrassed that I'm part of a unit that is playing this way right now and putting you in this position especially since I haven't been playing well. You put a lot of time and effort into it."
Jeff McLane
More highlights
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