Jason Kelce Shows Why He is the Eagles' Identity

No matter the injury, the Eagles center would never throw in the towel on his teammates, not in a 3-6-1 season or on a miserable weather day in Cleveland

PHILADELPHIA - Like many of us Miles Sanders didn’t know the full extent of Jason Kelce’s left-elbow injury during a 22-17 setback in Cleveland on Sunday, but the Eagles star running back was hardly surprised when Kelce was back on the field at the start of the third quarter

The 33-year-old veteran center shouldn’t have been and you don’t need an X-ray or an MRI to make that medical decision. Seeing left guard Isaac Seumalo have to buckle up Kelce’s chin strap for him was enough to get a doctor’s note excusing any further absence.

Kelce, of course, would have none of that. He was injured late in the second quarter missing the final four plays of an ugly first half for Philadelphia.

The tough guy who stands out in a profession of tough guys refused to go into the medical tent and paced around the sideline like a raging bull before agreeing to one concession, making his way to the locker room a few minutes before his teammates.

With Nate Herbig a scratch and Jeff Stoutland unlikely wanting to shuffle multiple deck chairs by moving the returning Seumalo inside (which the OL coach had to do anyway due at different positions due to other injuries), the Eagles faced the prospect of a long second half with undrafted rookie Luke Juriga handling the pivot.

Juriga’s first four snaps of his NFL career at center were the ones Kelce missed in the first half.

When Philadelphia returned, however, so did Kelce with a massive brace on his left arm. Toradol may have been involved and adrenaline certainly was.

“I just know that’s a tough son of a gun,” Sanders said postgame. “Probably the toughest player on our team.”

Kelce is the Eagles' “Stone Cold” Steve Austin but this isn’t scripted.

“[He} plays through whatever and does whatever it takes to stay on the field and help us win,” said Sanders. “Even in practice, when he can take vet days easily and just not practice, but he’s always there practicing. I don’t know his injury. I just know he’s gonna be fine. I know that, and he’s gonna be ready for practice on Wednesday.”

In the modern sports world where an NBA-fueled tanking sentiment has seeped through to the psyche of fans across all sports, playing in such circumstances is dumb or a waste of time.

For a 3-6-1 team?

What those who profess that everyone wearing a Band-Aid should be protected if a championship isn’t in reach is that players like Kelce never even exist in their world.

The thought of competition is broken down into a math equation that says losing gives you a better opportunity in 2021 and beyond. To them, the rest of the Eagles season isn’t valuable and everyone should stay in stasis, ready to move forward again when real success is again in view.

What they don’t understand and will likely never understand is losing is antithetical to players like Kelce, whether it’s in the grander sense of Super Bowl-or-bust or on a miserable Sunday in Cleveland.

You simply can’t build the former without the latter.

To Kelce, fighting for his teammates is always mission No. 1 and if that’s a dinosaur, we better make sure his particular species never go extinct.

“Yeah, I mean it’s hard,” veteran safety Rodney McLeod, another warrior, said of the losing. “We all put so much work into this. We prepare hard, we go to practice each and every day, and then we show up on Sundays expecting to win. And when you do all those things and the outcome isn’t kind of what you’re expecting, then it’s hard to digest that.

… at the end of the day, there’s still six more games left. I would never quit. I know this team, our identity, no one has that in them."

Kelce is that identity.

John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every Tuesday and Thursday on "The Middle" with Eytan Shander, Harry Mayes and Barrett Brooks on SportsMap Radio and PhillyVoice.com. He’s also the host of Extending the Play on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen

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