Eagles’ Kelce makes his retirement official
Jason Kelce is officially calling it a career. The six-time All-Pro Philadelphia Eagles center held a news conference Monday afternoon to announce his retirement, a move that has been expected since Philadelphia’s season ended in January.
Kelce, 36, leaves the NFL after 13 seasons, all with the Eagles, marked by dependability, availability, consistency and cerebral, exceptional play. Kelce was selected to seven Pro Bowls in his career, including the most recent five, and his six first-team All-Pro nominations came over the final seven seasons of his career.
After Philadelphia’s season ended with a 32-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild-card round of the playoffs, Kelce was visibly emotional on the sidelines, and he declined to talk to the media afterward.
According to multiple reports, Kelce had told teammates in the postgame locker room after the wild-card loss that it would be his last game as an NFL player.
Known for his gregarious nature, Kelce became a social media sensation during the playoffs, when he attended several Chiefs games to watch his brother, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, play. During a divisional round game in Buffalo, Jason Kelce went shirtless and chugged beers from a suite, alongside Taylor Swift.
After that divisional round game, Jason Kelce called it “one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had. From start to finish.”
A sixth-round draft pick out of the University of Cincinnati in 2011, Kelce started for the Eagles from Day 1 – eventually playing in 193 games over his 13 seasons. Kelce leaves the game as one of the most popular players in Eagles history and a likely first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Kelce was instrumental in Philadelphia’s Super Bowl run in 2017, when he helped lead the franchise to its only championship in a 41-33 victory over the New England Patriots. He did his part to try to push the Eagles back to another Lombardi Trophy, but the closest they came was in 2022, when Philadelphia lost to the Chiefs.