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That's right, another day we're gonna talk Jason Kelsey. As The Eagle Eye in the Sky Podcast continues, I'm Fran Duffy, and as always, I think we've got a great show for you here on episode number five twenty two. At the top of today's show, we've got chalk Talk where I catch up with my good friend Chris mcpheers and to talk through the career of Jason Kelcey. Monday afternoon, Jason Kelsey announcing his retirement from the National Football League. So I thought that rather than doing a combine preview right away, I just got off the plane from Indianapolis on Monday, let's wait a little bit for that. We'll touch on that in a few days.
I think.
Now let's take a little bit of a breath and talk through Jason kelce and the impact that he had not just on the Eagles, but on the NFL and the position obviously a future Hall of Famer, and we'll talk through all the reasons why. Before we get into that with SEMAC, make sure you head over to Apple Podcast, rate review, subscribe, check out all of the great Jason Kelsey content if you want to feel nostalgic, if you want to relive some of those memories. And there's so much content out there right now over on the Philadelphia Eagles app, the Eagles social pages, over on YouTube, so much that you could take in from Jason Kelsey's career here in Philadelphia. That said, let's get into it now with se MAC, It's time for chalk talk. Let's get down the business.
It's time for chalk talk.
All right, Well, like I said, it's time now for chalk talk AUS. I welcome in Chris McPherson to talk through the big announcement. On Monday, as the Eagles start a new week, we're a week away from the new league year, Jason Kelcey officially announces his retirement after thirteen seasons here in Philadelphia.
Yeah, it's actually about twenty four hours since the end of the emotional press conference that had pretty much everyone in the Eagles organization, fans around the world in tears. You know, we knew that this time would come. I actually recall I don't know if you recall this, Frand, but we were in Cleveland two seasons ago, two train camps to go joint practices. We were coming back from one of the practices and on the bus you could overhear a conversation between Kelsey and Fletcher Cox and they were talking about the future and what retirement is going to be like. And it was one of the things like, you don't want to see this day come. You know what's gonna happen. You know, all good things come to an end. But the biggest thing is I'm happy to see Jason go out on top. And everyone might be saying, well, wait the season, and I'm like, he is going out as the best center in the NFL. Your YouTube piece from during the season and McCay made the argument or that he could arguably be the greatest center in NFL history. I'm just so happy to see him go out on his terms. You know, everyone would say, oh, it'd be great if he got to go out with a Super Bowl witness and that, but Jason go to his Twitter bio and you're coming for a dose of real and real life is things aren't going to always play out the way. You're not gonna always have that high wood ending. And I think it's just very fitting from that standpoint that Jason, while he doesn't get the team accolade, to get the individual honors and people from all around the NFL community, the sports community, the First Lady of the United States chimed in on Jason Kelsey's retirement. I mean, that's the impact that he had. And Philadelphia is the rare market, the rare city, or someone like a Jason Kelcey, an underdog offensive alignment typically the positions that are seen but never heard. You know, you'll only talk about them when they're committing a fall start penalty or holding penalty during a game. That he could become the biggest celebrity on the football team.
You know, he spoke for just about forty five minutes on Monday and covered so much ground over that time. And you know, anytime you hear him talk about his relationship with the fans, it's outstanding. He's done that numerous times over the years, especially over the last you know, three four five years, And I thought the way that he was able to intertwine his relationship with the fans with the relationship with his brother with Travis, it just, I mean, just beautifully written. Number One. Everything that he did over the forty five minutes was outstanding and obviously extremely genuine, extremely heartfelt, and I got emotional several times. Say it was kind of unique because I got my plane landed coming from the combine around twelve thirty, twelve forty five, and so I got to baggage claim as the press conference was starting. So I'm watching on the Eagles app and I'm tiering at the beginning. Obviously he's struggling to get things going, to get it off the ground, and you know, I'm gett emotional watching it, and you know, as he starts, and then I get into my ride over here from the airport to the office, and I'm tearing up in the back seat. And then I'm able to come in and catch the last eight to ten minutes or so from the cafeteria from the Novercare Complex with almost the entire Philoff Eagles organization watching on all the monitors in the cafeteria, and you could have heard a pin drop in that in that room as everybody was taking it in and just a re and afterwards, you know, Jason came in and you know, shook hands, high fived, you know, hugged various basically everybody that was in the room, just kind of showing his appreciation to them and allowing everybody else to thank him as well for his contributions and certainly like one of the most fascinating players that I've had the opportunity to be able to study and to cover over my thirteen years here in Philadelphia. I mean, he got it. My first year was twenty eleven, so you know, I remember that was the lockout year, So the first time the players were allowed to work with the coaches was the first day of training camp that summer out of Le High and that was my first day. And so you know Jason, you know, Jason walking in and becoming the starter, you know from the jump, just such a unique story as a sixth round pick, and as you mentioned, I mean, he's gonna be a Hall of Famer. Before we get into the rest of this, let's go maybe go through those some of those personal accolades. Obviously, it started, you know, Super Bowl Champion, a huge part of that Super Bowl in twenty seventeen. But take us through some of his personal accolades as well that he was able to rack up over his career.
Yeah, well we'll start with the service. So thirteen seasons all with the Philadelphi Eagles tied for the third most seasons in franchise history. One hundred and ninety three regular season game is played most by an offensive player in Eagles history, the second most Enfranchise history. The iron Man streak one hundred and fifty six consecutive regular season games started Okay, and this dates back to the twenty fourteen season and lasted through the end of his career. It's the longest such streak by any player in Eagles history, and.
I believe it was the second most, the second longest in the NFL over that span, Right, it was Jake Madgin.
Jake Matthew one that was longer. Yes, So in terms that you mentioned, super Bowl champion seven Pro Bowls, Okay tied for the second most in Eagles history, the most by any Eagles center, six time first Team All Pro, the only NFL center since nineteen seventy to accomplish this and win a Super Bowl. You go to you know, more recently, we have Pro Football Focus and the metrics that they provide the grading service. He had an overall grade of ninety four point four in the Super Bowl season. He talked about how you know that twenty seven team campaign was personally so satisfied because it was the team's best season, winning the Super Bowl, being the first Eagles team to accomplish the feat, but also for himself having the best year of his career. Yep. Well, that ninety four point four great is the highest by any center in the Scouting Services history. This dates back all the way to two thousand and six. From twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen, each of those three seasons he was PFF's number one center. He grated as a top four center overall in eight of his final eleven seasons, and he was a great as a top four center. He's going back out on top. He was a top four center in each of the past three years. So still at the top of his game, still can certainly play, you know, but decides to go out on top. And on top of that, he was also for his work off the field, and this is you have to go you know on egos social media YouTube channel Eagles have to find this video when he was named the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year nominee for the Eagles, and the video that our Eagles Entertainment team produced showcasing the people who he impacted over the years was truly outstanding. And I think this goes to what you mentioned, the connection that he had with the fans, and that you know why he and Nick Sirianni seem to resonate so well is because what his coach's number one core value, and that's something that Jason Kelcey did to me. The only other Eagles player in my time I'm going two thousand and four, first year full time and even still you were here in so the only other player who I feel like had that same connection with Dog, the way that they understood what this team means to the fans and vice versa, what the fans mean to this team. And I thought Kelsey's anecdote about Zach ertzou how you know the Cincinnati game in twenty sixteen and he did the Ola block, I'm perfect and then the next week came back and was tough to ring down because it's true everyone did get on Zach for that but he responded and he eventually was the one who hauled in the Championship Super Bowl Championship winning touchdown pass. So certainly the impact that that Jason Kelsey has had on this franchise, you know, on the field, off the field, and to me, he's gonna still be a round.
Yeah, I don't think he's going anywhere.
If you have not signed up for the Autism Challenge in May, yeah, right, second, Jason in person, you can still sign up now, and that is a tremendous obviously a fantastic, fantastic organization, a great, great endeavor, but the access you get to the players second to none.
So certainly if you need that. And he's also gonna have his Sea Isle Ocean Drive event later this summer. I think it may even be like a two day affair.
Something tells me that that'll have record numbers to be off.
The freaking chart is gonna be. That's to be the retirement party for the Ages right there.
So you hit on a bunch of his accolades there. You mentioned the amount of Pro Bowls, so seven seven Pro Bowls, six All Pro nominations, and uh, you know what last summer was when I decided I was going to do this Jason Kelsey project, the YouTube video that you alluded to earlier, and so I started my uh, just my look into like, you know, the what are what are his Hall of Fame accolades? And I went it went into it thinking like, oh, like, yeah, it's really hard to get into the Hall of Fame as a center, you know, I don't know that he's definitely going to get in. And then after diving into some of the stuff, I'm like, God, like, he's a lock. He's going to get in. When you look at so he's made All Pro What did I say? But he's made All Pro six times. He's one of six centers in NFL history to get at least four All Pro nominations, one of just three since the mergers at Center to get All Pro five times. All the rest of those guys on those two lists are already in the Hall of Fame, you know. And so when you just look at it just from that, and that's the thing is that when you go into Hall of Fame, you know, nomine for especially offensive linemen, but even across the board, All Pro, Pro, Bowl, All Decade Team, all that stuff, and for this piece I talked with Paul Domwich, I talked with Mike Sando, I talked with a couple of people who have you been in those rooms with those hall having those Hall of Fame deliberations and you know, what are the things that end up mattering and sway one way or the other for one player, And they said, you know, it's it's those personal accolades and then believe it or not, like super Bowl championships and like the amount of like winning teams you were on and so him having that super Bowl and also like being you know in many ways like the face of that of that team in seventeen that is going to go, yeah, again he's gonna make He's a lock to make it. But again, there's just so many things. Going back and watching Seemac every snap of his career for that piece back in the in the summer and into the fall, it was it was so much fun because you could just see like all the different ways that he was able to impact the game, all of the different ways that various schemes and coaches were able to really lean into his strengths as a football player, which obviously starts with his athleticism and his toughness and all the different ways with which he was able to impact the game. I mean, truly, there are very few guys at offensive line that you can call a weapon. I mean, Jason Kelsey was a weapon for this Eagles offense for thirteen.
Years, more than thirteen thou seasons.
Well, that was what stood out to me. You talked about the PF grade earlier. So he played you know, over the course of his career in that sample size, right, no one has had more pass snaps played than Jason Kelcey. Okay, he's the highest graded pass blocker from PFF over that time. So not only had he played the most, but he was the highest graded over that time. Like that does not happen.
You know.
Again, you can get into like the validity of PFF grades and especially with but I think that that kind of like speaks to what he has been for this team. And you know, you can you go and watch the piece for all a lot of these numbers, but like, uh, you know watching Okay, he was such a big part of when Chip Kelly got here. They ran those pin pool sweeps right where he's pulling out to the outside and you have you know, Todd Harriman's and Evan mathis you know, blocking down on the nose tackle so that he can pin or so that he can pull. I mean they ran, they ran for more yards on the pin pool than anybody over that time. You look, get a screen game going into this season and began so much of my analysis started in the summer. So that's why I was like, all right, going into twenty twenty three, no team had created more yards after the catch on screenplays than the Eagles over the course of Jason Kelsey's tenure like age, and he obviously was such a big part of that. So it was block after block after block. It was it was hard to narrow it down to say, like, oh, like, I don't know if this one's gonna make the cut. Just so many examples of him just being a monster on the move and so many blocks that honestly, like I had forgotten about. Let me go back to like the the game against the Bucks down the road. It was the Jeremy Macklin game when he touched down from Nick Foles. There was a screen till Lashawn McCoy that went for you know, like six the seventy yards, and Jason Kelsey was like thirty yards downfield delivering a huge block on Mark barn At around it, right around midfield where he just tosses him to the ground.
In the middle.
And you don't see that from offensive lineman that far downfield. And I think that again, that just kind of speaks to what such a rare talent he was at the position.
It's also from a as you're getting into draft talk and draft season and raidency is right on the horizon. Yep, It's okay. Jason Kelsey is not for everyone because he was two hundred and eighty pounds, so that he acknowledged in his retirement speech. But the Eagles, to your point about him being a weapon, knew how the weaponize and utilized it. And Howard Mutt, who came in those last couple of years with Andy Reid, wanted someone similar to Jeff's Saturday who could get out on the move and have the athleticism, and Jason Kelsey combined that with the toughness football iq, the intelligence, and also the work ethic in understanding that at times his career because it wasn't like he came in was all Pro and was All Pro every single year. You know, he's making these All pros in the back half of his career, after he admitted that he knew that he wasn't playing very good if his football wasn't at the highest level or as a SASH factory enough enough level that he was willing, thanks to Jeff Staalin, was willing to get in the lab and to fine tune the footwork, the hand placement, all those details that maybe are tough to see when you're watching the game on Sunday, but those are the things that make the difference between a guy coming from the college ranks and maybe making in the NFL versus being an All Pro and eventually a Hall of Famer, I mean even the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
I know, as soon as I saw that, I was like, yeah, I had never seen it.
And he talked about talking with the guys like Domo and Sada, the guys who've been in the room just playing this retirement prescot play that speech he's in. He won anyone who may have been on the fence over because just listening to it personally, I just said to myself, I would you know how many things in life get you that emotional. You know that he loved this game and what it brought him so much that he's opening about recalling getting ready for you know, it sounds like like an Oklahoma drill or something along those lines, owners old having such a visceral memory of that that that's how much he loved those those little aspects of the game that it made him feel so alive. It's like, you know, he talked about being a father, your father, you know me makes me think of my two teenage voice, and it's like, you hope they find the things in life that make them that happy that brings out that passion. You know.
Yeah, and you know you mentioned the you know obviously him alluding to Howard and he was the offensive line coach when the Eagles drafted him back in twenty eleven. The relationship that he and Howard had before Jeff Stotlin came to the Eagles in twenty thirteen. To me, and looking at both coach Stylin and a coach Mudd, the classic case of like, don't tell me, you know, when you get this time of year, don't tell me what a guy can't do. Like tell me what a guy can do to be able to help your football team. And you know, when you look at Jason and the way that he was utilized within the structure of the offense, you know, screen game, perimeter run plays, even the you know the brotherly chove, you know, having that kind of advantage in all of those different ways. The Eagles just constantly finding ways to be able to allow him to do things that others didn't. How many times do we see him, you know, those little fold blocks where he's just pulling right behind an offensive line of the guard pinning down and he's just pulling right into for Jalen Hurts to run behind on a QB draw or Darren Sprolls on a draw play.
Right.
We just saw so many of those kinds of plays over the years. And you know, again to what you were saying, just a classic example of a coaching staff and a scouting department saying, okay, like this is what a guy can do for us, Now, how do we best leverage that? And even going back to you know, doing the research for that piece back in the fall, tried to get as many clips from like miked up segments and from uh, you know, sideline sound. We only need the Eagles. We only started micing players up. I want to say it was like twenty thirteen, so we missed those first couple of years where he was here with Howard Mud, but we had a lot of sideline sound from that time, you know, from NFL films and some of the stuff that we did on our own, and uh, you know, seeing some of those interactions between Jason Kelcey and Howard Mudd and sometimes they like the audio was a little fuzzy so he couldn't like get it and it wouldn't have made sense to like plug it into that piece, but you really got the sense for a young player, and you saw some of the interactions between Andy Reid and Jason kelce where you were able to see like, okay, they put they know, like it's not gonna be perfect. You know, you have you have this a rookie center, second year center, and you're trying to allow him to grow. And you would see like Howard Mudd kind of give him a knowing glance like hey, like that wasn't perfect, but like you're gonna get it next time. You've got this for next time. And you know the communication that Jason was able to have, the the x's and o's talks that he was able to have with coach Stotlin on like twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen. Uh, we heard about that over the years. Was the the the classic conversations that those guys would have in the meeting room, not even just on the sideline, but in the meeting room during game plan meetings of this is, Hey, this is how we want to attack this defense this week, And those guys would just go on and on and on and on, and everybody else is in the room like are we are even here? But just these two guys having a one on one you know, it's just again kind of speaks to to his character and to you know, what he meant to this football team.
Yeah, just and just the longevity aspects. You know. One of the things before we jumped down here, I was just going to the Super Bowl and I was like, who are the guys from his rookie year who are still around for the super Bowl? And it's no BG. Yeah, Brent Salik, Jason Peters, Yeah, that's right. Like that's how quickly things turn around in this leagal, you know, and you added the guys like you know, Puncher Coss came in in twenty after. You know, there are guys who came in shore. They're active, but still just from that, you know, that twenty eleven season, that that lockout here, it's it's just so remarkable. But the other thing that got to me was the value of the relationships. And he talked about one of his favorite things. And I think if you talk to a lot of guys, they missed Sundays, guys who were retired, they missed Sundays. But during the week, they missed the camaraderie, they missed the locker room chat, the time in the cafeteria. And it seemed like to me, Jason just got the most of all those interactions, like he squeezed every drop out of his thirteen years with the Eagles, and you know, building those relationships that he talked about will last a lifetime. It's just a good view of life overall. Try to maximize, you know, every opportunity that you have because you may wait at the end of the day, but if you don't have those people to celebrate those wins with, it's like, wow, what's what was it really all forul just to say, oh, okay, I want this, But it's almost like it's not as satisfying. Do you have those people around who you can, you know, celebrate the wins with or by your side, and not just peers.
But even you know, saying that to Kylie to his wife, not a coincidence that my best football happened when you were by my side.
That part was amazing, absolutely amazing. That's I feel like the second half of the speech and what spoke to me about the family and things along that nature, and that's I have so much respect for Jasons because of the main he is. For as much as he did on the field and helping this team win his first Super Bowl and getting the team to another World Championship appearance, you know, it's who he is outside of the that is just so remarkable, especially for someone who has the profile that he has to still be as grounded as as he is, so he has, you know, the everyman that everyone looks he's. Everyone loves them. You know, their fans lining up outside Novacare with the keg and they're ready to tap the keg when.
They were already there when I when I they was so like halfway through the speech, they were they were already outside ready to go, so they knew what was coming.
Yeah, So it is it's gonna be different. It's gonna be different in twenty twenty four when you have a different player lining up at center for the Philadelphi Egles, because again, it has not been a game since the twenty fifteen campaign. Have you missed some time in twenty fourteen, Okay, but since twenty fifteen nine, it's been all Jason Kelsey center. Through all the changes that this team has had, he has been one of the few steady constants over the last decade.
Since I've been doing like Eagle Line the Sky podcast, as I've been breaking down film here with the philip Eagles, he has been the starting signer. So I thought that it was important. You know, obviously we're coming off the combine. There's a lot to talk about from the trip to Indianapolis, but I think we can kind of put that off for a few days and come back and address that. Cemac, thanks so much for joining me to talk through Jason, and again, everybody can go check out Philadelfeagles dot Com, the Eagles mobile app, the Eagles social channels. There's so much Jason Kelce content out there. I mean, there's whether it's print you're looking for, photo gallaries, you're looking for best micd up moments, you can go and watch the YouTube the segment from the fall. Just like the ex's and nose breakdown, there's behind the scenes access all the community stuff. You can find anything you want Jason Kelce related. You go check out the Eagles YouTube page, the Eagles mobile app, all the digital channels there for SEMAC, I am frand Well, we'll talk to you here in a couple weeks or a few days rather, I should say, just recapping the combine. A lot to talk about from the trip to Indianapolis. We previewed it before the trip. We will recap it here in the coming days, right here on the Eagle ad the Sky Podcast
