Jason Kelce retired on March 4, 2024. His long-rumored departure from the NFL came after 13 years as a center for the Philadelphia Eagles. He’ll probably make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As recounted in the 2023 documentary. Kelcemarried Kylie McDevitt, a Philadelphia native; They still live in the Philadelphia suburbs. Kelce played center, so he was basically anonymous to everyone except football fans, until his moving speech at the Super Bowl victory parade in 2018. He donned a Mummers costume and listed the many ways when people doubted the Eagles. It was pretty cool. It earned him a lifetime of admiration in the city and set him on a trajectory toward a much bigger profile outside of it.
In fact, Kelce remained retired from the sport, but he didn’t leave. He has become not only the most famous interior lineman in American public life by a wide margin, but a virtually unavoidable fixture during NFL broadcasts and completely unavoidable during commercial breaks on NFL broadcasts, where he jokes with your brother or your mother or the CGI buffalo mascot from Buffalo Wild Wings. He has continued to co-host one of the most popular sports podcasts, New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelcewhich was released in September 2022. Contributed to a third Christmas album featuring the Philadelphia offensive line; a song in A special Christmas party in Philadelphia It was a duet with Kelce and Stevie Nicks. He was involved in a match at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia. He broke some idiot’s phone. He and Kylie Kelce were harangued on the shore by a drunk woman. Kylie now also has a popular podcast.
But mostly Kelce has taken on the role of ESPN analyst. The Hollywood Reporter called it “possibly the most popular medium [free] NFL offseason agent,” so presumably he’s raking in that Disney money. Its main job is Monday night countdownwhere Kelce is one of four co-hosts, along with four contributors and also Adam Schefter. People seemed to like him when he debuted in August. But familiarity breeds contempt, or at least exhaustion, and after a full season of Maximum Kelce there’s a bit of fatigue. You can feel it in the late night talk show that ESPN gave him, which is calledThey call it Late Night with Jason Kelce.
So, yeah, this is a lot of Jason Kelce. Enough for two of us here at Defector to properly analyze his first season of retirement. We’ve brought together representatives from the McQuade (East) Coast and the Ratto (West) Coast, Dan McQuade and Ray Ratto, to talk about it.
AND: What’s up, Ray? One in three businesses in Philadelphia sells some piece of bootleg Jason Kelce merchandise, so I obviously have a much more localized opinion of the man. He is everywhere at every opportunity. Of course, I also have very fond memories of him as a football player. What has been your opinion about him?
Ray: I’ve had pretty much everything I can use for a while. Kind of like how I feel about all the Mannings. I mention this first because Kelce is slowly but surely erasing my memories of him as a player with his insistence on inserting his beetle eyebrow mush into my eyeline every nineteen minutes.
AND: I’ve been watching your talk show. Well, I’ve been trying to see it. I spent 17 minutes of the first episode of They call him late at night before my wife asked me if we could watch an old episode of America’s Next Top Model instead. It’s the season with a challenge where contestants pose on Ellis Island with child models dressed as early 19th century immigrants, so you can guess the level of entertainment Jason Kelce’s talk show provided me.
However, my wife made many comments about the 17 minutes we watched. His main takeaway was: “There are so many good ideas for jokes. But it’s so amateurish.” I’m not an actor, but I appeared in Roth and Roth: the journey of a cardboard cutout and yet I delivered my line “It’s a little like Wingstop, but for beef” with the gravitas of Philadelphia Charlton Heston. Still, I can see how someone who doesn’t have a trained presence in front of the camera might have a hard time making a transition like this. And I agree there are some good ideas, although the first episode begins with Kelce talking to a personified Eagles stadium. But the show is so routine. Guests on the first episode included Kylie Kelce, Jimmy Kimmel, Charles Barkley and Lil Dicky. Finally, a chance to see all these people on TV!
Ray: I like the group with Travis because it is not written. Everything else Kelce does, from commercials to appearances on ESPN and now to this, seems like someone else’s idea of who and what he should be and say. And since those people are largely lampreys who should be freed from their moorings and thrown into a giant furnace, they have no business trying to explain Jason Kelce to Jason Kelce. I mean, he’s a pretty dumb oaf on his own, so leave him alone.
However, that’s not the way ESPN; Only a few manage to avoid the pre-programmed conversation about jeans all the time that helped inspire the national cord-cutting craze. But now he’s screwed because he can’t even do the bellowing routine in his tank top because Pat McAfee already has the copyright on it. So you can cash your ridiculous checks and fake it in the desk conversation, or maintain your artistic integrity and give up on your dream of vacation accommodation in Quebec.
It’s interesting that ESPN, which used to be Boston-centric, has always been New York-centric, and has also tried to colonize Miami (LeBatard), Washington (Kornheiser-Wibom), and even Atlanta, eventually taking advantage of the mutant. Philadelphia Underground Culture. May the galactic elves have mercy on their lost souls. Kelce should be allowed to rise above mere geography, but instead, ESPN’s strange obsession with putting everything into separate civic boxes undermines whatever his skill set is or could be.
AND: One of the first things Kelce says in the premiere is about breaking free of the Philly mentality and introducing things to everyone, followed by a shot of a crowd mostly focused on the Eagles. Note: This crowd wasn’t Eagles-focused enough to properly recognize and cheer on legendary Eagles WR Harold Carmichael, who did a little skit early in the show. Carmichael was before my time, and long before the audience of this show, but also, come on. They bring it up in games all the time! His hands are the size of garbage cans! He was an incredible soccer player. You should know this guy.
Ray: As for the show, it’s boring and forgettable the moment it stopped inserting itself into my family room. Too produced (a fucking house band?), too overtly and rigidly written (Kelce delivers his lines the same way a beer trucker reluctantly delivers Yuengling popsicles), and casual only when placed in context with Ryan Seacrest . wheel of fortune fold. In the world of podcasts, where no one is introduced from offstage and there’s no place to put on a band, this all feels too extruded, a shelf-stable product forced to be canned and shipped in bulk to grocery stores. I’ve seen most of the episodes that have already aired and have been mostly gratified by the fact that they all end eventually. It is neither bad nor good, and it is not. Below deckwhich is beyond good and evil, but not separate from anything else Disney makes. At least the podcast seems genuine, whether it is or not.
In short, his girlfriend’s words about going to bed early resonated with me; My wife wouldn’t watch it because she knows life is short. Jan clearly knows comedy.
AND: And yet, I think Kelce could recover from all of this. The talk show probably isn’t going to work out, but he obviously knows football, is really nice, and seems like the kind of person who would work to keep improving on television. Hopefully, he stays in touch with the game so he doesn’t fall like Tony Romo did when he wasn’t quite retired. Or not! He could just decide to change course and ride off into the Philadelphia sunset, being a local hero here while his wife begins her turn to stardom.
Ray: My advice to him? Don’t follow any advice. He can’t keep up with the game because it changes too much too fast, and the world of the show is really too strange for anyone in their right mind. But he’d probably do well to cash in while he can, with his family as part of the comedy troupe, and let the business die in his rearview mirror as he drives to his retirement in the Carolinas, throwing empty bottles through the sunroof and talking to the police. . to cite him for littering.
AND: Another funny thing my wife said was, “This should ruin talk shows down the road.” Xanadu Ruined musical movies.”