Tag: Jason Kelce

If you’re looking for someone to make you feel better after the Eagles’ 27-7 loss to the Chicago Bears on Monday, Jason Kelce is here to help.

Jason and his brother, Travis, recapped Week 3 of the NFL on their New Heights podcast. Jason shared why he’s not too concerned by the Eagles’ loss, before the brothers finished Wednesday’s episode by interviewing actor Jamie Foxx.

Flawless execution

Like many of the stories following Monday’s loss to the Bears, Jason and Travis focused on 38-year-old Case Keenum’s performance as a third-string quarterback.

Jason said it was a frustrating game to watch for Eagles fans, especially with how Vic Fangio’s defense played, but he’s not too worried. The former Eagles center pointed to outlier games like this in the past, including against the Bears on Black Friday last season and against the Buccaneers two seasons ago.

“I have confidence that they’ll get this rectified,” Jason said. “They have one of the best [defensive] coordinators and defensive minds in football over the last 30, 40 years, however long Vic Fangio has been coaching. But it was a bad performance on Monday night against a really, really good Chicago Bears offense.”

With what Jason called “one of the best offensive lines in football,” featuring Jonah Jackson and Darnell Wright, and confidence from his head coach Ben Johnson, Jason said Keenum could execute the scheme “flawlessly.”

“The scheme is something that, when you’re 38 years old, you’re in the league for a long time,” Jason said. “A lot of the reasons you’re still there is because you know that stuff in and out mentally. So there’s no question that he’s going to be able to execute what Ben Johnson’s going to ask him to do.”

Along with defending the Eagles defense, Jason also defended his outfit choice after wearing a jeff cap for his Monday Night Countdown appearance as a studio analyst.

Despite the comparison to Peaky Blinders characters online and from his brother, Jason stood by the choice.

“Anytime you wear a jeff cap, now you’re impersonating a 1910s person,” Jason said. “People still wear jeff caps. Like, people are aware of this, right? Still a piece of attire.”

Vintage Travis Kelce

The Chiefs improved to 3-0 with a 24-10 win over the Dolphins in Miami on Sunday. And outside of the Florida heat and the struggle to put away the Dolphins in the second half, there wasn’t much else to discuss.

Instead, Jason took the opportunity to acknowledge Travis’ start to the season. Jason said many are wondering if it’s “one of the best starts” of his younger brother’s 14-year career. He included a statistic from Patrick Brennan that said Travis was off to the best start by any receiver his age in NFL history.

He’s also recorded 55 or more receiving yards in each of his first three games of the season for the first time since 2021.

“I’m the best geezer to ever play the game,” Travis said jokingly.

Ridiculing the rules

In a brand-new segment called “Heights & Order,” San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk made an appearance on the show to discuss his $14,926 fine for “engaging in offensive demonstrations,” during a celebration.

Juszczyk, who was accused of imitating chugging a beer, has gone by the nickname “juice” for years and has a juice box on his thigh pad, said he was imitating drinking juice.

Jason defended Juszczyk, even if it was a beer celebration, because of the league’s promotion of beer in commercials and partnerships. And while Juszczyk has a hearing scheduled to appeal the fine, it seems the repercussions, including a new nickname to replace “juice,” are going to stick around no matter the outcome.

“It’s been incredible,” Juszczyk said. “I’ve got the chefs in the cafeteria calling me ‘Beer.’ The janitors are, ‘Hey, Beer.’ … They love it. ‘Juice’ is out the window.”

The rest of the Kelces’ conversations with Juszczyk revolved around the fullback position in the NFL, but even after he left, the topic of the rules kept coming up.

When discussing the Eagles game, Jason brought up the unnecessary roughness call on D’Marco Jackson against Jalen Hurts that sent Hurts into the tent for concussion protocol testing. During that time, backup QB Andy Dalton threw an interception in the end zone.

The unnecessary roughness call was offset by a holding penalty by Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson. And Jason had thoughts.

“The fact that a holding call is offsetting with what happened to Jalen on the sideline is pretty crazy to me. Those two shouldn’t be offsetting,” Jason said. “That’s like the equivalent of like, ‘Hey, you got a jaywalking ticket and you’re being charged with aggravated assault. Those offset each other.’”

After Sunday’s scorcher in Nashville, Travis and Jason Kelce’s opinions reached a boiling point in Wednesday’s episode of New Heights, when the brothers discussed the turf temperature for the Eagles’ win.

In a nearly two-hour episode, the Kelce brothers broke down all the happenings of Week 2 of the NFL before an interview with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, who were promoting their Apple TV show Brothers on a podcast with two … brothers.

Too hot to handle

The turf on Sunday in Nissan Stadium in Nashville reached 157 degrees, and Nick Sirianni reportedly needed an IV.

So how hot is too hot?

Jason and Travis debated the extreme temperatures, which Jason said he initially shrugged off.

“I was like on WIP or something like that earlier in the week. They’re like, ‘Oh, you think the heat’s going to make a difference?’ I was like, ‘Ah, everybody’s playing in heat,’” Jason said.

That was until he saw the actual temperature of the turf displayed on the TV and heard about Cam Jurgens, who said he switched his cleats about three times because of them melting.

“You shouldn’t be allowed to do that,” Travis said “You shouldn’t be allowed to put players on a field that does that.”

While Travis’ solution was simply putting down grass fields instead, Jason’s idea was more out of the box.

“We got to get some air-conditioned fields,” Jason said. “Come on guys, we can we can do it.”

Don’t rush the rushing game

You’ll take the wins “how you get them,” Jason said while discussing the Eagles’ 24-20 win over the Titans on Sunday. But he still saw plenty of good, especially from quarterback Jalen Hurts, who Jason said “is the reason why they have won these two games.” Hurts went 26-for-37 with 264 yards and two touchdowns on Sunday.

“What’s the most encouraging to me is that if Jalen is playing like this the way he has the two first two weeks, that run game gets going, it’s going to be a very fun offense to watch,” Jason said.

Jason said Hurts hasn’t gotten enough credit for being a reason the Eagles’ run game was so dominant for so long. He thinks issues with the rushing game this season are rooted in the offensive line, and continuity issues, largely because of injuries, have changed that dynamic and made it harder to establish.

While those issues sort themselves out, the Eagles filled a void at tight end following Dallas Goedert’s injury by getting “a dog back in the in the Eagles jersey,” Travis said of Zach Ertz. Jason added that Ertz is on the cusp of breaking Harold Carmichael’s franchise record for career catches, needing just 11 more.

“I’m always excited to see 86 in some green, especially if he breaks this record,” Jason said. “I think if anybody was going to break that record, I’d be happy that it was Zach.”

It’s a toss-up

Travis broke the record for the most yards after catch by a tight end in NFL history, and his wife, Taylor Swift, showed off her ring in a viral moment of her lauding the Chiefs overtime win with a cheer of “that’s my husband,” and still, the moment that New Heights listeners had the most questions about was a coin toss.

In a moment that has since gained a lot of traction, Colts safety Camryn Bynum tried to “defer” after winning the coin toss in overtime. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes tried to take advantage of the moment by interjecting and saying “they get the ball.” Referee Craig Wrolstad ignored Mahomes’ attempts in favor of making sure he understood what Bynum and the Colts were trying to do.

Because there is no second half in overtime, deferring is not an option, which caused some confusion from fans. Still, Jason was quick to support his brother and the Chiefs in their attempt to capitalize on the blunder.

“I’m on board with, like, you saying the wrong thing, I think you should be penalized for that,” Jason said.

Brothers and Brothers

The sports conversations didn’t end when McConaughey and Harrelson joined in the second half of the episode.

Between talking about their careers, friendship, and new show, the group also talked sports.

That included a story McConaughey told from Texas’ BCS national championship win at the Rose Bowl in 2006. He spoke about the “intangibles” he saw Vince Young display during the game and taking off his helmet and running down to the other side of the field to shake the hand of three USC alumni veterans during a TV timeout.

“I was sitting there looking at that,” McConaughey said. “We’re going like, ‘We’re going to win this game.’ ‘Did you see that?’ ‘That’s how present this dude is.’”

As for Harrelson, McConaughey revealed he’s actually a “sneaky athlete” who can be ambidextrous while playing tennis or basketball. However, unlike his character in Kingpin, Harrelson isn’t much of a bowler.

“That’s a real hard sport for me, bowling, but sometimes I get lucky,” Harrelson said. “One time I actually bowled a 199. Imagine the last frame, all I needed to do was get more than like three, and I got three.”

On Wednesday, former Eagles center Jason Kelce said “You never want to overreact to Week 1.”

Still, Jason’s warning about reading too much into things too soon didn’t stop him and his brother, Travis, from dissecting all of the ins and outs of the NFL’s opening week on the latest episode of their podcast, New Heights.

‘Find the tight end’

He might be biased, but Travis had some advice for quarterbacks, including the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts.

“You want to be good at quarterback, just find the tight end,” Travis said when recapping the Eagles’ 24-22 win over the Washington Commanders.

While Jason acknowledged that most people were curious to see what the offense would look like under new offensive coordinator Sean Mannion, he said his biggest takeaway was how good Hurts looked.

Both brothers credited Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert for helping with what Jason called “awesome plays,” resulting in four catches for 77 yards and two touchdowns.

“This offense I think will fit [Goedert] pretty well,” Jason said. “All this misdirection and stuff, they scheme things up, and it stresses those linebackers.”

He also acknowledged the struggles for the Eagles offensive line, including left guard Landon Dickerson, who was placed on injured reserve with a bone bruise on Monday.

“You could tell he wasn’t redirecting as well as he needs to or has,” Jason said. “And it’s a shame because when he is healthy, he is one of the best guards in the league. So he struggled a little bit in the game, and then I think Cam Jurgens had a couple holding calls. I don’t think he played as bad as I think what Twitter maybe seemed to say.”

Neither Kelce thinks there’s reason to worry just yet as the Eagles settle into this season and the new offense with a 1-0 record, which Travis said it “doesn’t get much better” than.

The return of the Chiefs dynasty?

During a dominant 31-10 Monday Night Football win over the Denver Broncos, Travis became second all-time in receiving yards for a tight end. He currently has 13,073 career yards and passed Dallas Cowboys legend Jason Witten (13,046) with a 59-yard catch in the third quarter.

But don’t get it twisted. Travis was adamant that it wasn’t a record, despite his brother’s protests that he “broke Jason Witten’s record.” Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez remains the all-time leader with 15,127 career receiving yards.

Just being in conversations with players like Gonzalez, Witten, and other tight end stars from his childhood is a big deal for Travis.

“To be in the same talks as these guys at this point in my career, Jason [Witten], it’s an absolute honor to be in the same conversation as you,” Travis said. “I’ll have to just play another five years to catch Tony.”

Travis also gave credit to the rest of the Chiefs, including Patrick Mahomes, who returned from knee surgeryi and “did what he needed to do,” and running back Kenneth Walker III who, in his first game with the Chiefs, had 173 rushing yards on 23 carries, including a 60-yard touchdown. Walker, the Super Bowl MVP with the Seattle Seahawks last season, added a receiving touchdown in the fourth quarter.

“You can’t say enough about what Kenneth Walker is and what he’s going to be for this, this team and this organization and this city,” Travis said. “He’s one of those Kansas City guys, and you guys in Kansas City that don’t know him yet, to the core of who that guy is. He’s, he’s an A1 person.”

Down to a science?

The brothers discussed how other teams fared during Week 1. They took a look at how offenses seem to be trending upward with 10 teams scoring 30 or more points on Sunday, which is more than any Week 1 since the stat first started being recorded.

On the topic of firsts, they reviewed the first NFL Australia game, which the San Francisco 49ers won, 27-7, over the Los Angeles Rams.

The brothers focused on the teams’ travel. The Rams made the 15-hour flight one day before the game; the 49ers flew out a week in advance. Jason grew impassioned while not giving these studies much weight.

“To me, all these science, whatever they put in front of the team to sell you on the reason they’re doing it is you can find the science to say whatever … you want to do,” Jason said. “You can pick and pull. They made a whole study out of saying chocolate’s healthy for you because it has, like, antioxidants in it.”