It’s often thought that when you retire, or finish school, or hit any other milestone, it really doesn’t hit you that you’ve closed that chapter in your life until the first day you’re supposed to be there but you’re not really supposed to be there.
So it is for Jason Kelce, who told Joe Giglio and Hugh Douglas on Friday that retirement didn’t really hit him until last month, when what would usually be the end of the offseason was just another day.
“It’s been weird for sure, but it really wasn't that different until OTAs and minicamp started and then I'm starting to be like, ‘oh man, I'm really not there anymore with the guys,’” Kelce said. “You miss being part of those conversations in the locker room, and when you're a part of the team, you're constantly trying to improve your game and the guys around you, talking to coaches about what to do to be better. So not having that feels weird; I’m definitely missing it, and I'm sure once the games start getting played in training camp, it's only gonna get worse.”
Has he thought about reconsidering his retirement in that time, though?
“No, because I had been wrestling with this decision for years now, and the reality is I'm not coming back, and I haven't really questioned coming back,” Kelce said. “I mean, I miss parts of it, but I don’t think at this point I can do it at the level and the way I want to do it any longer. I think I maximized where it was at, and physically, it’s just painful. It’s hard, and I don’t think that if I continue to do it, it's gonna be at the level that I'll be happy with.”
Hugh joked that ‘the one thing I hate about offensive linemen is once they retire, ‘those mofos lose weight quick,’ and indeed, Kelce is a svelte 275 or so right now, maybe a little less depending on if he’s washed his feet that day (if you know you know…and it not, it’s all in the clip above).
And, yeah, looks like it’s gonna stay that way.
“I think the older I got, the more ornery I got. Was that because of the fatigue of the entire season and process and like body pain?” Kelce said. “I remember talking to Howard Mudd years ago and he said, ‘you know, pain in itself is a depressing thing and it's gonna cause you to have a different mental state in general.’ So I think the grind…it’s really hard, obviously, to compete at the highest level in the NFL, and to do it in year in and year out, and the older you get, the more you have to do on top of that, so it does wear on you.”
He’ll now transition to the media, as part of ESPN’s football coverage – which will see him have to dote on the Eagles in Week 2 when they play on Monday Night Football – but don’t think that the man who defined Philly for a generation will have any trouble not just being an outright homer.
“I think I've always been critical; obviously, it's gonna be a little bit different,” Kelce said. “I still have a lot of those relationships that I care a lot about with former teammates, coaches, people in that building, and that will never go away, but I think to do the job accurately, you have to look at things critically. A lot of what you're saying in the building, you have to be critical while you're a player and look at things objectively in order to improve, so I’m very used to that. I think now it’s just gonna be a little bit more out in the open of what my viewpoint is on the Eagles at-large and how they're playing or how the season is going. Luckily, I really feel like I'm gonna be in a good situation Year 1, because I think the Eagles are gonna be pretty dang good, so hopefully, it'll just be a lot of sunshine and rainbows up there. But it’s pretty crazy to think I’m going to be doing a home game in the Linc.”
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