Jason Kelce will be the best NFL analyst since John Madden
I can’t wait for Jason Kelce to start demolishing the NFL.
Passionate? He’s going to make John Madden sound uninterested. Clairvoyant? He’s going to make Romo-stradomus seem a step slow. Authentic? He’s going to make Tom Brady look like a poser.
Low bar, but still.
I’ve been covering the league for 34 years, and I know what I’m seeing. I usually watch games with the sound down; Tony Romo’s histrionics never impressed me. I never watch pregame or postgame shows; bland predictions and toothless reactions are a waste of time. CBS’S Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms have always been a little too antiseptic for my taste; thanks for the unmemorable memories, guys. I love Matt Ryan, but Matty Ice ain’t the answer, either.
If he’s true to his word and true to himself, Kelce will be different. As in, better. It’s just who he is. It’s why he isn’t exactly universally beloved by his former teammates; Kelce hurt some feelings over the years.
“I’ve been doing that my whole career,” he said. “If you’re doing your job as a player, you’re being critical of what you’re doing, what’s happening with the group, what’s happening from the coaches. Especially the older you get, people throughout the building lean on you to be that. They want to know what your actual point of view is.”
Kelce spoke to NBC
Sports Philadelphia’s John Clark recently on the Takeoff with John Clark podcast. Clark pressed Kelce about perhaps being uncomfortable when called on to criticize the Eagles. It appears to be no problem for Kelce, who was pretty candid with the press for much of his career. The message: You ain’t seen nothing yet.
“Maybe [speaking with] the media, you’re kind of saying that through a little bit of rose-colored glasses,” he said. “Certainly, in the building, you get used to the criticalness of it. If you’re not critical of yourself, of your teammates, of your coaches, in an honest way, you’re really doing yourself a disservice. So, I don’t think it will be that much different than what I’ve been doing. Now, I’m just going to be spouting it off to millions of people on television.”
Big, if true.
This season Kelce will serve as a pregame and halftime analyst on
ESPN’S Monday Night Football, replacing Robert Griffin III (yawn). Don’t expect him to be limited to Scott Van Pelt’s apron strings for long. He belongs in the booth, making bank. The industry needs him.
After Dandy Don Meredith and Frank Gifford served as Howard Cosell’s sidekicks, Madden left the coaching sidelines and defined the job on all four networks over the next four decades. Troy Aikman became the gold standard. Daryl Johnston was good, too. Cris Collinsworth has been brilliant and unbearable, sometimes during the same game. Greg Olsen is the best right now – he won Emmys the past two years – but he has been demoted in favor of Brady, who has never done it before.
Neither has Kelce, but, unlike Brady, Kelce doesn’t have the personality of a robot gone rogue.
Yes, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Kelce and his brother are getting ready to sell their wildly successful podcast, New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce, for what is expected to be an eight-figure sum. Kelce’s also hanging around the Eagles’ practice facility, dropping knowledge. He is a devoted husband and father of three little girls.
He’s gonna get bored. He’s gonna want to prepare for games and be in the mix. Also, he loves attention. When he does force his way into the booth, as he did playing center for the Eagles the last 13 years, Kelce’s going to redefine the position.
Combine the enthusiasm of Madden, the knowledge of Aikman, and the candor of Collinsworth, and toss in a little humor: That’s what Kelce will be.
It’s what he has been for so many reporters for so long.
One of the few delights about covering the NFL is that, occasionally, a player will be completely honest. He won’t always be completely honest on the record, and sometimes not even as background; you know, anonymous quotes and sources. Matter of fact, Kelce has never been an anonymous source of mine.
Players will only be brutally honest off the record – stuff you cannot use in print, but stuff that clarifies truths about the team. But they will tell you the folly of their coaches. They will tell you the character of their teammates. They will tell you why this team or that team is cheap with equipment, or medical services or scouting.
They will tell you these things because they want you and their fans to know the truth. Kelce was always one of those guys with the very few reporters he trusted. So were Jon Runyan and Jeremiah Trotter and Brian Dawkins. Other sports? Jimmy Rollins with the Phillies, Kimmo Timonen with the Flyers, Eric Snow and Aaron Mckie with the Sixers. All of them understood, why, especially in Philly, a degree of transparency mattered so much. Philadelphians and some of the Philly press corps can smell BS better than a farmer.
Assuming Kelce stays as authentic as he promises to be, prepare to be informed about things you were not informed about before. Kelce isn’t just smart, he’s knowledgeable. He understands the job of every single player at every single position, on every single team.
Furthermore, he knows the offensive and defensive philosophies of every active coach and coordinator in the NFL. He knows what they’re trying to do, if they have the personnel to do it properly, and if they are deviating from their DNA.
He knows the personalities of all the stars. He knows the strengths and weaknesses of every defensive and offensive lineman in the game. He knows which running backs block well, he knows which running backs position themselves properly to receive passes, which running backs will pick up the blitz and which ones won’t, and why.
He knows the tendencies of every quarterback: One of the more astonishing discussions I’ve had with him involved the habits and weaknesses of a quarterback he had no business having studied, but Kelce had dissected that QB as if Kelce was a safety, not a center. Speaking of which, safeties beware: Kelce is going to dime you out every chance he gets.
All of this knowledge makes him uniquely positioned, at least for the next few years, to deliver detailed analysis the likes of which we haven’t seen in the history of broadcasting.
Kelce could walk onto any NFL staff right now as the top assistant coach. He’d be a head coaching candidate by January. Fortunately for viewers, he’s far too much a family man to ever coach in the NFL.
Also, too lazy.
A booth job is just the right fit.
The networks have been looking for the next Madden for 15 years. Well, they’ve got him. Fox
Sports reportedly will pay Brady $37.5 million a year, which is at least $20 million too much. Romo gets $17 million, and Brady won’t be as good as him. Kelce will be better than both.
Mark it down: Within two years, Kelce will be making at least $20 million a year.
And he will be underpaid.