Jason Kelce has already been back to the Philadelphia Eagles facility in the first week of retirement, telling his brother Travis he is still waiting for the impact of quitting football to hit home.

Jason wept as he announced he was retiring from football at age 36 last week after 13 seasons and a Super Bowl win with the Philadelphia Eagles. Travis was in the audience and also cried as he turned up as a show of support.

Speaking about his first week of a brand new chapter on their New Heights podcast, Jason admitted he was not feeling much of a sense of change.

‘It feels zero different, I’ve actually still gone down the facility to get a couple weightlifting sessions in,’ Kelce said. ‘I’m a creature of habit, I don’t know.

‘I feel no different. I’m assuming once organized team activities start up, training camps and the season starts rolling around, it will really start to hit a little bit more.

 

Kelce said he had over 1,000 text messages on his phone after stepping away from the game

‘But one week in, not much different to be honest with you.’

NFL teams typically return to start the serious build-up for a season in July, meaning the older Kelce brother has plenty of time to come to terms with his decision before the practice sessions begin.

Kelce added he was overwhelmed by how many messages of support he received.

‘Dude, my phone had over 1,000 text messages,’ he said. ‘I think I got back to everybody, but it was so hard getting through it.

‘I hope I got back to you if you did reach out, I appreciate it so much. It was all very nice.’

The 36-year-old is widely anticipated to make a move into the world of sport analysis and apparently held meetings with several broadcasters around the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, where he cheered Travis and the Kansas City Chiefs to victory.

And he is also being filmed by Amazon Prime, the documentary makers behind is own ‘Kelce’ documentary last year catch his next steps on film.

Directors Don Argott and Sheena Joyce have been filming him since 2021, when he first mooted stepping away from the game, and revealed this week they have kept the cameras rolling since.

 

Jason told his brother Travis that so far, retirement life does not feel very different

‘In a way, we’ve kind of been making the Jason Kelce retirement documentary all along. I don’t know where we’re all going to end up with this [footage] but we’re honored, and really feel privileged to be included in his life like this,’ Joyce told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

She continued: ‘When he called us…all I could do was congratulate him, because I know what a difficult decision it was to come to, and how heartbreaking it is to put a period at the end of that sentence.’

Argott said filming the announcement was the high point of a day full of emotion: ‘We were spoiled to have him for 13 seasons. Jason — more than, frankly, anybody — has embodied what this city is all about in terms of sports, your attitude about sports, and how you play the game.

‘He’s the type of player [with] heart and soul, that person that we’ve always been able to count on.’

The pair say that since they began following Kelce around, they noticed that he seemed more and more ready to take that step away.

‘Jason wants to make sure he can perform at peak level at all times, and he knows that if he cannot perform at that peak level, that it’s going to eat him up,’ said Joyce. ‘That’s a really painful realization.’