Jason Kelce calls his former teammate Lane Johnson ‘an all-time Eagle’ on latest episode of ‘New Heights’
Kelce spent 11 seasons playing with Johnson on the Eagles' offensive line, and said his former teammate "means the world to me."
The Eagles will play the Jaguars in London on Sunday, but Jason Kelce is already there to discuss the retirement of his former teammate Lane Johnson with his brother Travis Kelce on the latest New Heights episode.
Jason was sporting another jeff cap after his rant in favor of the accessory last week, as he and Travis touched on multiple story lines from Week 4 in the NFL, before finishing the episode by interviewing Ben Affleck.
‘An all-time Eagle’
While the conversation began with the Eagles’ loss to the Rams, it shifted to Johnson’s retirement. Jason didn’t care to comment on it, because he hadn’t yet spoken to Johnson about it yet. He did, however, offer his support and sang the praises of Johnson, who was his teammate for 11 years.
» READ MORE: Stephen A. Smith’s comments on Lane Johnson’s mental health, and more of what pundits are saying about the Eagles
“Lane is like a brother to me,” Jason said. “I’m not going to pretend to know exactly what’s going on or why the retirement is happening now, but we’re talking about a guy that’s an all-time Eagle, a Hall of Fame player, a dude that like means the world to me. So, at the end of the day, he’ll look back and realize that he was one of the best tackles to ever play in the NFL, especially from a pass protection standpoint.”
As for the prior conversation about the Eagles, Jason changed his tune from last week, when he didn’t want to jump to conclusions about the Eagles based on one loss. This week, after a second straight loss, Jason isn’t making excuses for the Birds, no matter how many players were out dealing with injuries.
“This is really back-to-back weeks of some poor offensive football,” Jason said.
Unafraid to call out his former team for where they’re falling short, Jason promised Jaguar fans he will bring some of that to the broadcast on Sunday when he will be on the call for his first Eagles game.
He said some Jacksonville fans are already annoyed with the bias they anticipate Jason to bring to the game, but he assured them he will work to avoid that and to give the Jaguars, who he said are playing as good as any team in the AFC, “the credit [they] deserve.”
‘Why Andy’s so good’
The Chiefs beat the Raiders on Sunday to become the last undefeated team standing in the AFC in a game where Andy Reid also became the all-time winningest coach in Allegiant Stadium.
Reid made it clear he didn’t know or care about the achievement following the game, but that didn’t stop the Kelces from praising Reid’s coaching prowess, especially for what he’s done with running back Kenneth Walker III this season.
» READ MORE: Lane Johnson is retiring. Let’s look back at some of his most memorable moments with the Eagles.
“This is why Andy’s so good,“ Jason said. ”Andy has continually kept evolving with the NFL, right? And he had his way that he did things with Brett Favre, when he was first with Philadelphia, [Donovan McNabb], to everything he’s doing in Kansas City now. … It’s been a pleasure to watch how much that they’ve really looked at themselves in the mirror this offseason and come out with something that the league is really struggling to stop and they built it around [Walker]."
The Chiefs have a bye in Week 5, which Travis said he plans to use to watch football and enjoy some Cleveland Guardians October baseball.
Wicked Hard
The brothers took a look at how the rest of the league held up in Week 4, but took at deeper dive into the New England Patriots’ 2-2 start with Cambridge, Mass., native Affleck, who was this week’s guest.
The Patriots eked out a win over their division rival Bills, but quarterback Drake Maye has had a rough start to his third season, after leading New England to the Super Bowl last year. Through four games, Maye is 73-for-117, 854 passing yards and four touchdowns with seven interceptions and a fumble.
Affleck said the pressure Maye, 24, is facing early in his career is tough to manage, especially in a market like New England. Affleckbelieves Maye has the skillset to get back on track.
“You see how good a quarterback the guy is. You see what he’s capable of doing. It’s not like all of a sudden his skills have changed,” Affleck said. “I don’t know what the tools are. I think part of it has to be that confidence is you build on it, right? And negative confidence takes you the other way. And honestly it doesn’t help [that] New England’s a very hard place to play.”
Different year, different offensive coordinator, yet still, it feels like Déjà vu all over again. The Eagles had little margin for error Sunday vs. the Rams because of injuries. They played hard despite being shorthanded, but in the end, couldn’t put the Rams away, mainly because of poor execution on offense. Why hasn’t Sean Mannion's scheme clicked? How culpable are head coach Nick Sirianni and quarterback Jalen Hurts in the offensive rut the Eagles find themselves in? The Inquirer's Jeff McLane and David Murphy analyze the fallout from the 24-20 loss to L.A. Listen here.
Listen to all episodes here or wherever you get your podcasts.
