Jason Kelce let it boil over.
After an incompletion in the third quarter on Sunday, Kelce dove on what he thought might have been a loose ball and he didn’t like the extra contact from a Raiders defender.
He retaliated. And he got caught.
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“My helmet got knocked off and then the guy kind of hits me in the balls,” Kelce said. “They always get the second guy, so I just gotta be smarter. I didn’t think I did anything that egregious but whatever.”
This is Kelce’s 11th season in the NFL and it was his first unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
At the time of the penalty, the Eagles were down 17 points in their eventual 33-22 loss in Las Vegas that dropped them to 2-5 on the season.
“There’s a lot of frustration up to that point,” he explained. “When you put a lot into your job, when you put a lot into coming here every single day, things get frustrating when you’re not having success the way you want to. That doesn’t always come out in the healthiest way. I’m sure that played a part in it. The bottom line is we have to keep our focus and continue to get better.”
NFL
Yeah, there’s a lot of frustration within the NovaCare Complex and within the City of Philadelphia right now.
The Eagles are 2-5. They’ve lost five of their last six. They haven’t scored over 22 points in three straight games. They have been out-classed by several teams this season.
So that frustration, especially for a soon-to-be 34-year-old player who’s time is running out, is going to be natural.
But Kelce wants to use that frustration better. He wants his teammates to use their frustration better too.
“You try to channel it in a positive way,” he said. “That energy can be very useful on the practice field to amp up the intensity of things. I think right now, we need as much work as we can get and as much intense work as we can get. We’ve got a lot of young players playing a lot of football right now.
“I think that the intensity in competition is only going to make guys harden for game-type situations. That’s what I’m trying to do and bring and I think that you try to release it in a positive way that not only makes you better but also brings other guys’ levels up as well.”
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