Jason Kelce may not be retiring, after all.
Following reports that the Philadelphia Eagles center and likely future hall-of-famer told his teammates Monday that this week’s loss to the Buccaneers would be his last NFL game, the 36-year-old explained Wednesday that he has intentionally not made a public announcement—signaling that his mind may not be entirely made up on the matter.
When the time comes, he added, the decision will be “definitive.”
“I’m not trying to be dramatic and draw this thing out,” Kelce said on the podcast “New Heights,” which he co-hosts with his brother, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
“It’s just something that when I think it’s time to officially announce what’s happening in the future, it’ll be done in a way that’s definitive and pays respect to a lot of people and individuals that meant a lot to me, and what has led to the career I’ve had.”
A seven-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champion, Kelce was a sixth-round draft pick by the Eagles in 2011, and has spent each of his 13 seasons in Philadelphia.
Kelce told his brother that after the Eagles fell to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Monday’s wild-card matchup, he was mum to the media “on purpose.”
“I just don’t think you’re in a position after a game like that to make that decision,” he said.
Also on Wednesday, Kelce stopped by his local McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and signed a jersey for Danielle Bonham, a familiar face at the restaurant who told Fox29 Philadelphia that she’s “forever grateful and very fortunate to have crossed paths with him as many times as I did, and I just wish him nothing but the best.”
Whether that signature is of a soon-to-be former Eagle remains to be seen.