Feb 14, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Jason Kelce gestures to fans during the Super Bowl LIX championship parade and rally. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Ross-Imagn Images / Kyle Ross-Imagn Images
It must've been a fascinating meeting to be a part of on Wednesday when NFL owners and various others met to go over several rule-change proposals during the league's spring meeting in Minnesota. When it came time for debate on the tush push, the Eagles unveiled their secret weapon - Jason Kelce.
The retired center was in the middle of a play that commissioner Roger Goodell reportedly believes is ugly and wants it eliminated. The Eagles began using the tush push in earnest in 2022, so Kelce was in the later stages of a fabulous 13-year career that will likely earn him a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, when Nick Sirianni and his staff began to dial it up.
It was used a bit in 2021, but it didn't become the signature play for the Eagles until a year later.
Kelce never missed a start in that time despite running the play countless times over his final three seasons. And he wanted the owners to know that he never got hurt on the play. He also wanted to tell them that the tush push wasn't why he decided to retire after the 2023 season.
Reports of the meeting were that Kelce wasn't his usual loud and animated self. Per The Athletic, he offered his expertise as an All-Pro center and argued why the play should remain in the game. He calmly told the room that he was never hurt on the play and said, "If I could run 60 tush pushes a game, I'd come back."
Who knows whether that swayed the billionaires in attendance? It certainly couldn't have hurt. The vote to ban the tush push needed 24 votes. It got 22 - six more than during the league's March meetings. So, the tush push will live on next year.
Before Kelce said what he did, owner Jeffrey Lurie spoke for about an hour during which, one league source told The Athletic, he sounded "like a guy trying to convince his girlfriend why she shouldn't leave him" and said something about comparing what the league was trying to do in banning the tush push being "like a wet dream for a teenage boy."
Troy Vincent, who played eight of his 15 NFL seasons with the Eagles and now executive vice president of football operations for the NFL, chastised Lurie for making such a comment in front of women in the room.
Sources told ESPN that "tempers flared" during the meeting, with 49ers owner Jed York saying "how much (bleep)" Lurie needed to say as the meeting had exceeded an hour, drawing a few laughs in what was described as a tense room.
Kelce may have been the calming influence in the room after Lurie sat down.