The City of Brotherly Love was jubilated yesterday when it was announced that veteran center, Jason Kelce, would be returning for a 13th season in midnight green. Adam Schefter revealed the contract details on Tuesday morning and unsurprisingly, Kelce has secured another big deal.
Jason Kelce secures the bag
Jason Kelce will receive $14.25M in 2023 in what many will presume to be his final season. He’s teetered on the edge of retirement for a few years and while one last rodeo with Jalen Hurts as his quarterback, and another big payday was too good to pass on, Father time will catch up eventually, as heartbreaking as that might be.
The $14.25M deal will still likely ensure Kelce (as of today) is the highest-paid center in the NFL. Frank Ragnow has a $16M cap hit, but $3.6M of that is an option. Kelce is going to see a large portion of his guaranteed, likely pushing him back to that top spot.
Did the Eagles pay Kelce too much?
That’s where people might sour on this deal a little. The Eagles drafted Cam Jurgens last year to be the heir to Kelce’s throne and this isn’t the first time that Roseman has gone above and beyond to take care of his own despite there being a clear line of succession (CC Jason Peters). There is talk of Cam Jurgens moving to guard to replace Isaac Seumalo, which would also make this move seem brighter.
This move is nowhere near as worrying, however, as Kelce is still playing at a ridiculously high level. He deserves every penny of this payday, but one has to wonder if that money could’ve been spent on retaining CJGJ, Darius Slay, Marcus Epps, or T.J Edwards.
It’s great that Jason Kelce is coming back for one more year and his play will undoubtedly live up to the price tag. Where the decision to pay Kelce so well gets interesting is how the defense has been gutted of potential free-agent returns over the last 24 hours and the Eagles have very little in the way of cap space to work with.
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