Philadelphia Eagles’ Nick Sirianni has a lot of “love” for Jason Kelce — even if the NFL center is retiring.
“Obviously, we’re not there at that position yet to talk about that. He’s special and I love him. He’s one of the most special guys I’ve been around,” Nick, 42, told reporters following the Eagles loss on Monday, January 15. “He’s always got a place here and [I] always want him to play. We’ll see what happens as time progresses.”
The Eagles lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 32 to 9 on Monday, knocking them out of the playoffs for the 2023–2024 season.
Following the loss, Jason, 36, was emotional as he sat on the sidelines. He shook his dad Ed Kelce’s hand as he walked off the field following a conversation with offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland.
“That looks like a man filled with emotion,” an ESPN broadcaster commented following the game. “You wonder if that’s it for 36-year-old Jason Kelce.”
His wife, Kylie Kelce, was also spotted with her hands covering her mouth as she sat in the stands. Fans were quick to speculate that the couple’s emotional reaction to the loss meant that Jason’s retirement is among us.
One day after the Eagles game, NFL insider Adam Schefter reported on Tuesday, January 16, that Jason had announced his retirement after 13 seasons in the league while talking with his team inside the locker room.
Jason’s possible retirement has been discussed at length over the past few years. Kylie discussed the end of her husband’s playing career during Prime Video’s 2023 Kelce documentary.
“I don’t think that people realize the beating you’re taking then impacts the way you interact with your family,” she said, admitting that “for years” Jason has been talking about retiring. “I always tell people, no matter what happens with football, how it ends, I would like him to retire when he is still able to get down on the floor and play with our kids comfortably.”
The couple married in 2018 and share three daughters together, Wyatt, 4, Elliotte, 2, and Bennett, 10 months.
“I always am very quick to point out they’re compensated heavily, but it’s crazy as a 35-year-old man being in, like, a world of pain,” Kylie added.
Jason, who was drafted to the NFL in 2011, spoke about the possibility of retirement late last year when discussing the Eagles loss to the Kansas City Chiefs (where his brother Travis Kelce plays) in Super Bowl LVII.
“You know, I think it is a lot, and I think the way we’ve justified it as a family is that this is going to be over pretty soon here,” Jason told The NFL Report’s Steve Wyche and James Palmer in December 2023. “If it’s this year, which it very well could be, we want to make sure that we’re ready to go when football is done, and with all of these different opportunities and things, to figure out what it is we want to do with our retirement.”
