In this day and age of free agency and moneyball-style roster-building, you don’t come across many prominent players who have spent their entire NFL career with one team. There aren’t many “one club men,” as they say in the European football parlance, these days. One of the last, Jason Kelce, retired last year.
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Kelce came into the league in 2011 with the Philadelphia Eagles, and he never suited up for another team over the course of his 13-year NFL career from 2011 to 2023. After missing games in 2012 and 2014, he embarked on a franchise-record 156-start streak to finish his career. By the time he tearfully retired in 2023, he was the longest-serving player in Philly, the bona fide team leader, and one of the most well-respected people in football. However, his career began very differently.
Despite starting every game as a rookie, he entered the league as an unheralded sixth-round pick. But even back then, before he gained all the aura and experience that define him today, he was still the same hilarious, jacked-up Jason Kelce.
Matt Nagy, now the offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs, was an assistant coach during Kelce’s early years in Philly, and he recently shared a hilarious story from Kelce’s rookie year.
“I’ll never forget it for all my life. So, I’m a quality control coach, and we’re in training camp in Philadelphia, and it’s in the evening, and we’re kinda in the middle of camp. Guys are tired, they’re pissed off, angry, whatever, but getting ready to do a little learning at nighttime in the installs,” Nagy recalled on an episode of New Heights.
He continued to explain that in this particular instance, the team was having a special teams meeting at 6 PM. For special teams meetings, generally, most of the roster is in attendance, because anyone short of the quarterback could be called on to fill in. But as they were installing, the group got a little bit of a surprise.
“So everyone’s in the special teams room, most of the team, and then there’s a bunch of quarterbacks, quarterback coaches, and assistants, and some guys that aren’t in there that are just hanging out in the hallway. And all of a sudden you just hear this cursing, and freaking out, and like, yelling,” Nagy added.
“And all of a sudden, running up the steps, these doors pop open, and this big grizzly bear just pops out of nowhere and just starts MF-ing everybody.”
What could the commotion possibly be? Well, back in 2011, perhaps they were unsure. But if this happened in 2023, everyone in the building would know: that’s Jason Kelce. And he’s pissed.
“And he just starts pounding on the special teams door. Pops it open, and it’s just like, ‘Who the F did this? Who messed with my car? You stuck a banana in the pipe! You saran wrapped it!'” The Chiefs OC added.
“(Laughs) … Here’s a rookie, interrupting the special teams meeting wanting to kill somebody for messing with his car in the middle of training camp. And we looked at each other as coaches like, ‘Are you freaking kidding me? We got somebody here man, this guy’s freaking psycho!'”
And sure enough, they did, indeed, have a freaking psycho on their hands. He snatched the starting center job away as a sixth-round rookie, starting all 16 games his freshman season, and he never let it up for nearly a decade and a half.
Nagy has an interesting relationship with the Kelces. He was in Philly during the early years of Jason’s career there, serving as an intern, assistant, and quality control coach. Later, he moved to the Kansas City Chiefs along with his old boss, Andy Reid. He served there from 2013 to 2017 as a QBs coach and offensive coordinator. There, he also coached Jason’s brother, tight end Travis Kelce.
Nagy returned to KC in 2022 and has won two Super Bowls with the Chiefs since then. Apart from Andy Reid himself, Nagy might be the only other guy to have coached both Kelce brothers in the NFL.
