Eagles center Jason Kelce announced earlier this offseason that he'll indeed return for at least one more season, great news for fans who aren't ready to watch the legendary veteran retire just yet.
He's still playing at a Pro Bowl level, he's still clearly having fun, and it seems like Kelce is happy enough with where the team is development-wise to keep on trucking.
But a sneaky big part of his decision to keep playing in 2022? It falls to Nick Sirianni and Sirianni's coaching staff, Kelce said this week in a conversation with former Eagles defensive end Chris Long.
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Long and Kelce, two guys who know the pain football players' bodies go through when they play hundreds of games in the NFL, were talking about the recent trend towards protecting players and keeping them healthy by easing up on the full-intensity practices. Sirianni racheted back the amount of pads-on practices last year compared to previous Eagles seasons, and fans and media were both initially skeptical - but eventually it seemed the approach was paying off.
Kelce confirmed as much in his conversation with Long on The Green Light podcast, and even said he isn't sure he'd be coming back and still playing if the Eagles had a different head coach:
"KELCE: [Sirianni]'s much more open to listening to the new wave of sports science or whatever. Whereas Doug [Pederson] was open to that stuff but also he still - he played in the league, he was brought up in that old-school culture of 'You work harder, you stay in the building longer,' all that stuff.
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"KELCE: Anyone that's north of 30 [years old], they're really progressive with trying to make sure your legs are freshest for gameday.
LONG: And that factors into how long you probably want to play football.
"KELCE: For sure. Practicing on Wednesday and all week, having to do everything from the old-school mentality, I don't know if I'd still be able to do it, quite frankly."
That makes a lot of sense, honestly. As much as I enjoyed Doug Pederson as a head coach - like Kelce said, he was a great mixture of old-school and new-school - it's good to know the Eagles hired someone in Sirianni who understands where the game is going and what players are looking for in the modern NFL.
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Kelce expanded about the way his body is feeling earlier this offseason, when he explained why he decided to come back:
"I really think in some ways, obviously, my joints and everything are in worse condition but credit to some of the things we’ve got going on in that building. They’ve really found a way to get me feeling better than I’ve felt in a really long time."
Sirianni is still pretty early in building his brand as a head coach, but so far one of his biggest touchstones around the league seems to be giving players (and veterans in particular) leeway when it comes to practice and focusing on keeping guys fresh. You never know: that reputation could be a deciding factor for a seasoned vet making up his mind in free agency.
The second-year head coach still has work to do in terms of figuring out how to build a real contender, but so far Eagles fans should be pretty happy he's the one Jeffrey Lurie landed on last offseason.