Jason Kelce believes locker room drama ‘galvanized’ the Eagles, who should feel ‘very confident’ moving forward
The Birds put a week of drama in the rearview Sunday with an impressive win over the Steelers. Kelce thinks they’re as good as anyone.
Jason Kelce never was a fan of any media-related controversy that could divert a team’s attention during the season, but the situation with A.J. Brown and Jalen Hurts was different.
On his New Heights podcast, Kelce said everyone did exactly what they had to ahead of the battle of Pennsylvania.
“What all these guys did by talking about it openly in the media is force them all to take ownership in fixing it. And not just them, the coaches, everybody,” Kelce said. “They were all hard at work with what was going on in the media because they knew they had to go out and have the game that they did against Pittsburgh, and they ended up answering it in just a magnificent fashion.”
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Now, if it panned out the other way, Kelce admitted he’d likely have a different view of the situation.
“When stuff like this comes out, it tends to either galvanize you and bring you closer, or it can tear you apart and separate you,” Kelce said. “They clearly were galvanized by this situation this week.”
Before their matchup with the Steelers, Kelce said the only real question mark surrounding the Eagles was regarding their passing attack, which was brought even more into the spotlight with Brown and Brandon Graham’s comments. But on Sunday, those questions were answered.
“They come out and they answer the freaking bell. They answer the bell against a great team that they were going to have to throw the ball [against],” Kelce said. “As good as this run game is, Cam Heyward, Mike Tomlin, this front, this Pittsburgh Steelers defense, they’re not going to let you be one-dimensional and beat them.”
In doing so, Kelce said the Eagles proved they have all the makings of a great team and have to continue to do so as they close out the season.
When asked by Travis Kelce, his brother and cohost, if this team had the same vibe as the Super Bowl LII team, Jason said he’d be “very confident” if he was an Eagle.
“I do think this Eagles team, it’s about as complete as you can get,” he said. “You go down the roster, these guys are playing lights-out. They have great players; they have great coaches. Let me put it this way: I don’t think there’s a team in the league that they aren’t competing with or beating a good majority of the time.”
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But he acknowledged that there still is some stiff competition in the NFC if the Eagles want to go all the way.
“The Vikings are playing as good as anybody,” he said. “The Lions are still, until somebody beats them, in my opinion, they’re the best team in the NFC. Green Bay is right up there with those guys. They are playing fantastic right now. Don’t sleep on Tampa Bay. Their defense is fantastic. Before Mike Evans and Godwin went down, this team was on track to be one of the best teams in the NFL, record-wise. It’s only because those guys went down that they’re not up there with everybody else.”
The Eagles will make the trek down I-95 to take on the Washington Commanders Sunday as they try to clinch the NFC East with their 11th straight win.
“There’s a lot of great football in the NFC right now, and we got a tough one this week,” Kelce said. “This is a fun time of year.”