Top 25 Eagles Ranked: More to No. 2 Jason Kelce Than Meets The Eye?
PHILADELPHIA – He hasn’t missed a start since Oct. 26. That’s not last October or the October before that. It’s October 2014.
That pretty much tells you all you need to know about the current member of the Philadelphia Eagles who comes in second in our rankings of the top 25.
Here's more, though: He is the anchor of the team's offensive line, a position he has handled superbly both physically and mentally, barking out protection schemes in the passing game and run fits in the ground attack.
As if any further clues are needed for this player’s identity.
Of course, it is:
C JASON KELCE
In the world of professional football, especially in the so-called trenches, where bumps, sprains, pulled muscles, and broken bones can light up a player in any given week the way fireflies can illuminate a backyard during a Philadelphia summer, his streak of 139 straight starts is simply remarkable.
He has carved out a Hall of Fame career, perhaps even on the first ballot, with five first-team All-Pro selections in the last six years. That makes him just the third center since the 1970 NFL Merger to be named All-Pro at least five times, joining Dermontti Dawson (six) and Mike Webster (five). Both players are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Tom Brady gets a lot of pub for being drafted in the sixth round, the 199th player taken overall in 2000, but remember, Kelce came in the sixth round, too, the 191st player taken overall, in 2011.
That makes Kelce 35 going on 36 in early November. And there has been no drop in his play. He has said that he will know when it’s time to retire – or at least that’s what he’s been told by others – and he isn’t quite sure if that realization will ever dawn on him.
The on-field stuff is only one side of Kelce.
The off-the-field stuff is another.
The center has become a fundraising machine. He has helped raised nearly half-million dollars for the Eagles Autism Foundation and his Team 62 fundraising arm with his celebrity bartending events in each of the past three summers, and he is always present during the annual Eagles Autism Challenge.
“I’ve met a lot of people on the spectrum, and a lot of people through the different challenges and the events that we’ve done for the past three years,” Kelce said at his latest celebrity bartending event on June 28. “You see first-hand, from my events, that it’s affected (people). And you see first-hand from the amount of money that’s been raised and given to research, and raising awareness, and providing support to families.
“So, I think that it’s something I didn’t know a lot about, to be honest with you, before I met my wife (Kylie) … And this foundation, the amount of involvement we’ve had with this, you end up being a part of a new community and realizing that you’re helping in any way you can.”
As for the rankings, the process behind the top-25 list started with Eagles beat writers Ed Kracz and John McMullen putting together their own top 25 players independent of each other’s rankings and then assigning point values, with 25 points awarded to the player ranked first on each list, 24 to the player ranked second, and so on, with one point going to the player that was put 25th.
The highest ranking from either reporter breaks any ties in the ballot.
Here’s how the rankings shake out so far:
No. 25 - RB Kenny Gainwell
No. 24 - LB Nicholas Morrow
No. 23 - S Reed Blankenship
No. 22 - S Terrell Edmunds
No. 21 - K Jake Elliott
No. 20 – LB Nakobe Dean
No. 19 – DT Jordan Davis
No. 18 - DT Jalen Carter
No. 17 - RB D’Andre Swift
No. 16 - DT Milton Williams
No. 15 - DT Fletcher Cox
No. 14 - CB Avonte Maddox
No. 13 - DE Brandon Graham
No. 12 - CB James Bradberry
No. 11 - LG Landon Dickerson
No. 10 - LT Jordan Mailata
No. 9 - CB Darius Slay
No. 8 - DE Josh Sweat
No. 7 - TE Dallas Goedert
No. 6 - WR DeVonta Smith
No. 5 - Edge Hasson Reddick
No. 4 - QB Jalen Hurts
No. 3 –WR A.J. Brown
No. 2- Kelce
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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