Philadelphia Eagles: Now, all eyes turn to Jason Kelce’s knee

The Philadelphia Eagles win, the Philadelphia Eagles win! The season is saved, Gardner Minshew is QB1, and Nick Sirianni is headed to the Hall of Fame!

… so now that that’s all out of the way, let’s talk about the topic at hand; a topic that could be far more impactful on the overall season’s trajectory than a mid-season win over one of the worst teams in the NFL.

In the waning moments of the game, well after the outcome was effectively decided, Jason Kelce went down on an otherwise inconsequential snap and grasped at his knee in seething pain before being helped off the field.

Is that a bad situation? Yes. Even at the ripe old age of 34, Kelce is probably the Eagles’ best offensive player and the only guy on the team right now who is a lock to make the Hall of Fame. Losing him, even for a handful of snaps, undoubtedly makes the Eagles worse, as Nate Herbig‘s flyball snap on the very next play showcased perfectly, but if Kelce is out for the remainder of the season, or, worse, has his prospects of playing in 2022 severely limited by an ACL tear, it could seriously limit the team’s potential moving forward.

Keep Jason Kelce in your thoughts, Philadelphia Eagles fans; these next few days could define the season.

It’s harder for the Philadelphia Eagles to win without Jason Kelce.

Jason Kelce has started every game for the Philadelphia Eagles since 2014.

Since returning to the field on November 2nd, 2014, Kelce has played 8,461 total offensive snaps – 8,071 in the regular season, 390 in the playoffs – been flagged for 41 penalties, and only allowed 14 sacks combined.

Besides the penalties, those numbers are very good.

Kelce remains a consistent contributor against the pass, a beast in the zone blocking game, and easily the best pulling interior offensive lineman in the NFL when afforded an opportunity to lead block in space. To make matters all the more impressive, Kelce has played so many games that he can pretty much ID any opposing front and thwart even the best blitzing calls, as Robert Saleh experienced firsthand in Week 13.

Can Nate Herbig do that? Can he shut down a blitz before it happens or help get the team out of bad plays into better ones? As a guard, Herbig is serviceable-to-good, but as a center? He’s bad.

Whether the Eagles opt to roll with Jalen Hurts or Gardner Minshew once the bye week passes and Washington’s unnamed football team rolls into the Linc for their first bout of the season, having Herbig shotgunning passes to either quarterback isn’t going to help the team win games. Heck, if anything, the genuine fear that he’ll sail a pass overhead might limit either quarterback’s ability to fully get into the game and fully lock in.

To paraphrase the criminally underrated 80s rock back Cinderella, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.” That song feels incredibly relevant at this particular moment, and not just because Kelce bleached his hair to a Sunset Stip shade of platinum blonde over the summer.

The Philadelphia Eagles have been preparing for Jason Kelce to retire for what feels like half a decade. They initially drafted Isaac Seumalo to be their center of the future in 2016, drafted Landon Dickerson for the same reason in 2021, and will surely select another would-be ball snapper in 2022 regardless of what the team’s medical report states. Why? Because center is one of the most important positions on the team, and the drop off from having one of the best of his generation snapping balls for a decade to any player is going to be noticeable, even if his protegee is as highly touted as Dickerson. Fingers crossed that day doesn’t come in Week 15, as it’d be nice to see Kelce go out on his own terms.