Jason Kelce has announced his retirement from football in an emotional press conference.
The Philadelphia Eagles legend burst into tears before he even started speaking and then finally ended months of speculation as he ended his career on Monday after 13 years in the NFL.
Kelce announced the decision with his brother Travis, wife Kylie and parents Ed and Donna in attendance at the Eagles’ team facility. Footage showed Travis, who wore sunglasses throughout, crying as he watched on.
He needed 45 minutes to recount his career from his childhood in Ohio to his final days with the Eagles through tears, laughter and many thanks to his biggest influences before he finally announced he was retiring.
‘I have been the underdog my entire career,’ he said. ‘And I mean this when I say it, I still wish I was.’
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Jason Kelce has announced his retirement from football in an emotional press conference
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Kelce had to pause his speech for deep breaths as he struggled to control his emotions
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Tears streamed down Kelce’s face throughout as he struggled to get his words out
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An emotional Kelce struggled to get his words out – regularly pausing for long periods and his voice breaking as he tried to hold back the tears.
Talking about his relationship with his younger brother, Kelce said: ‘This is where it’s gonna go off the rails.
‘I won’t forget falling short to the Chiefs and the conflicting feeling of the heartbreak I had selfishly for myself and my teammates and, at the same time, the amount of pride I had in my brother. He climbed the mountain top once again.
‘We have a small family. No cousins. One aunt and one uncle. It was really my brother and I our whole lives. We did almost everything together. Competing, fought, laughed, cried and learned from each other.
‘We invented games, imagined ourselves as the star players of that time. We envisioned making the game winning plays, day after day. We won countless Super Bowls in our minds before ever leaving the house. And when we weren’t playing, we were at the other one’s games.
‘Butt seated in a long chair or bench, a Capri Sun in our hands that mom had packed, cheering during the game and waiting outside and afterward to celebrate a victory together or offer encouragement after a defeat.
‘There is no chance I’d be here without the bond that Travis and I share. It had made me stronger, tougher, smarter and taught me the values of cooperation, loyalty and understanding.’
He also paid a moving tribute to wife Kylie and said it’s ‘no coincidence I have enjoyed the best years of my career with Kylie by my side.’
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Jason, 36, pictured alongside his wife, Kylie, and their three young children
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Jason shared a kiss with wife Kylie as he left the stage and greeted his loved ones
Kelce added: ‘I still remember the moment she walked through the door. The first instance is burned in my retina, it was like she glided through the opening, an aura around her.
‘And then she started talking and I thought, ‘man, is this what love feels like?’ She was beautiful, smart, serious, yet playful. I knew it right away.
‘I think it’s no coincidence I have enjoyed the best years of my career with Kylie by my side. Every accolade I have ever received in my life has come with her in my life.
‘She has brought the best out of me through love, devotion, support, honesty, intelligence, and of course a swift kick in the a** from time to time. She has also given me three beautiful girls in a life that increasingly brings me more fulfilment off the field than it does on. We’ve had a great run, Ky.’
Speculation first emerged that Kelce would hang up his cleats when the Eagles were eliminated from the playoffs by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in January.
However, he refused to announce a definitive decision on his future in the weeks that followed, instead supporting brother Travis throughout the postseason as the Kansas City Chiefs eventually won the Super Bowl.
Kelce came close to retiring this time last year but decided to stay on for another season after struggling to walk away – a process that was captured on film in his hit Amazon Prime documentary.
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Kelce celebrates winning the Super Bowl with the Eagles in 2018
He was a sixth-round pick out of Cincinnati in the 2011 draft. The burly, bushy-haired and bearded Kelce has been a stalwart of the offensive line since he was drafted and as an Iron Man after he missed most of the 2012 season with a partially torn MCL and torn ACL.
A seven-time Pro Bowl selection, the center won the Super Bowl with the Eagles in 2018 when they beat the New England Patriots in Minnesota.
The moment that endeared him for life to the Philly faithful came at the Super Bowl parade following the 2017 season when he dressed as one of Philadelphia’s famed Mummers, and the ultimate underdog delivered a fiery, profane speech that whipped the crowd into a frenzy.
‘No one likes us! No one likes us! No one likes us! We don´t care,’ Kelce exclaimed that day in February 2018. ‘We’re from Philly! (Expletive) Philly. No one likes us! We don’t care!’
Kelce recalled that moment Monday, saying: ‘I won´t forget the parade and what it meant to the city of Philadelphia. The joy in our community and the closure it gave so many.’
‘That wasn’t my speech,’ Kelce said. ‘It was Philadelphia’s.’
He’s been a showman off the football field, singing the national anthem at a 76ers game, partying with the Phillie Phanatic and pounding a beer to a roaring ovation at a Phillies postseason game.
But it was his work on the offensive line that made him a star. Kelce ended his career by making 156 straight starts, and he earned six All-Pro Team selections.
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Kelce dressed as one of Philadelphia’s famed Mummers for his Super Bowl parade speech
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He became a beloved on of the city and retires as one of Philadelphia’s sporting icons
He was part of Philadelphia’s core four of stars that have experienced droughts and championship runs, multiple coaches and one of the worst collapses in the city’s sports history. Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham are the lone holdovers from former coach Andy Reid’s last season with the Eagles in 2012. Lane Johnson completes the four veteran anchors and was a rookie in former coach Chip Kelly’s first season in 2013.
Kelce is the first one to call it quits. Sirianni added to Kelce’s lore by shipping a keg of beer to the center´s home to entice him to return in 2022.
‘No Keg videos this year,’ Kelce wrote Monday morning on social media.
Instead, he thanked a long list of mentors from his high school football, hockey and lacrosse coaches and his old band teachers at Cleveland Heights (Ohio) high school for putting up with a ‘rambunctious kid that was full of immaturity, stupidly and cockiness.’
He thanked his coaches at Cincinnati for believing he could play center, a fortuitous decision that made him a great fit in Philadelphia, then thanked his four coaches with the Eagles.
Kelce choked up again thanking Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie for his leadership and general manager Howie Roseman for drafting him. He shared memories of his Eagles career and said he would never forget the day Reid called to tell him Kelce had been drafted by the Eagles. Kelce’s father rushed into a room, ‘with tears streaming down his face,’ in pure joy of the moment.
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Kelce thanked his coaches throughout his career and praised his teammates and friends
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Kelce announced his retirement at a packed media room at the team’s NovaCare Complex
Kelce went on to play 193 regular-season games for the Eagles.
‘It has always been a goal of mine to play my whole career in one city,’ Kelce said. ‘I couldn’t have dreamt a better one if I tried.’
The center, who hosts the ultra-successful ‘New Heights’ podcast with his brother Travis and filled in on Amazon’s Thursday Night Football broadcast during his bye week this season, looks destined for a career in broadcasting if he wants it.
He’s already met with executives from Fox and ESPN, according to Front Office Sports, as he used Super Bowl week in Las Vegas to ‘make the rounds’ with networks.
The Sun also reported that there was already a ‘scramble’ among several broadcasters to win Kelce’s services – and that he could make up to $5million per year for his football analysis.
Despite the lucrative offers seemingly waiting for Kelce, he recently admitted to being anxious about what life after football might look like.
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The Kelce brothers are two of the NFL’s biggest stars thanks to their New Heights podcast
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Kelce has already appeared on Prime’s NFL coverage and a move into broadcasting looks likely
‘It’s exciting to think about possibilities, it’s exciting to be able to lose weight, feel good and not have to physically fight for my life every day,’ Kelce, 36, said. ‘It’s also daunting. It’s anxiety. At the end of the day, it’s the unknown.
‘People ask if you get nervous for games but the only games I get nervous for are the first time – you don’t know what is in store. Ironically it makes you play better, it makes your senses alive. But that is kind of where it is at when you start thinking about retirement.
‘It is exciting, the possibilities. All of us were fortunate, we can go in a lot of different areas. But that is also very nerve-wracking, you don’t know what you are going to like until you are doing it. You don’t know what you are going get fulfilment in until you are doing it, you don’t know what you are going to be great at until you are doing it.
‘All that stuff is also in the back of your head. No matter how you handle it, no matter who you are, how well prepared you are to enter the next stage, everybody goes through a level of depression, really.
‘The end of one of the things you love most in your life is there and you are going to have to come to grips with that.
‘You might be struggling and you don’t know it. I feel like you might be struggling in football but you get that win, that little shot, dopamine, like ‘I got it’. I’m a big ‘hit’ guy.’
