Over more than a decade anchoring the Philadelphia Eagles‘ offensive line, Jason Kelce earned a reputation for toughness, leadership, and composure.
Yet, it turns out, the six-time All-Pro had a standing household rule throughout his NFL career: no fighting. And as Kylie Kelce recently shared on her podcast Not Gonna Lie, that rule wasn’t about avoiding injuries or protecting his image.
“What I did often, often remind him, was that if a fight broke out, that he better keep all 10 of his piggy toes on the outside of that field,” Kylie said on her show. “Because you wanna know another way they pop you? If you so much as step a foot onto that field when you were not previously on that field, while there is a fight happening, even if you went out there to break it up: Fine. Fine dollars out of your pocket into the NFL’s.”
A wife’s pep talk rooted in business, not brawls
The warning became something of a pregame ritual for the couple. Before every game, Kylie reminded her husband to stay calm no matter how heated things got on the field.
“They don’t [expletive] around with that. They do not (expletive) around with that,” Kylie emphasized, pointing out that the NFL’s penalty system is unforgiving even for players with good intentions.
The mother of four said she often delivered the same reminder before kickoff.
“When Jason was there, that was my pep talk,” she said. “My pep talk was like, ‘Hey, doesn’t involve you. You keep your [expletive] where it is. Don’t do it.'”
Kylie, who has become a personality in her own right since Jason’s retirement, joked that even though her husband has a calm public image, she knows better than to assume he’d keep his cool in the middle of a scrum.
“As much as I would love to say that Jason would be the one that would hop in there and be the peacekeeper breaking it up, you and I both know. You and I both know,” she said with a laugh. “I’m pretty sure he was going and swinging.”
Kelce’s ability to stay composed under pressure helped define his career. Drafted in the sixth round of the 2011 NFL Draft after playing at Cincinnati, he became the heart of Philadelphia’s offensive line for more than a decade. He was central to the Eagles‘ 2019 Super Bowl win and appeared in 205 games, rarely missing time despite the physical demands of his position.
Read the full article here
