While Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce mulls over his potential retirement, he’ll have a change at offensive coordinator to encourage his return.
After falling flat in the second half of the season, Philadelphia decided to hit the reset button at both coordinator spots, hiring defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore.
Moore, of course, spent a season as the Dallas Cowboys quarterback coach in 2018 before another four as the offensive coordinator. Now, he’ll look to help Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts return to his Super Bowl heights.
Kelce, though, isn’t quite ready to forget Moore’s Cowboys tenure.
On his podcast, “New Heights,” which he hosts with his brother – Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce – Jason brought up the final play of Moore’s reign in Dallas.
The play he’s referring to came from the Cowboys’ 2022 Divisional Round loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Down 19-12 with less than a minute remaining and no timeouts, Dallas was in desperation mode. On their last play, with six seconds remaining and 76 yards to go, Moore called a trick play.
Infamously, running back Ezekiel Elliott snapped the ball as center and was promptly blown up by a linebacker, foiling the play. Dallas came up 68 yards short of tying the game.
“There’s a lot of people – and I think looking back, ourselves – that realize that we could have potentially been a little more creative offensively,” Kelce said. “And I think Kellen will bring a lot of that. He did it in Dallas, he did it I’m sure this past year on the Chargers …
“Everyone wants to bring up the Ezekiel Elliott snapping the ball-type thing. That creativity didn’t work on that play, but it’s not always gonna work … I still wanna know what was gonna happen. I can’t wait to ask him!”
The Kelces shared a good-natured laugh about the embarrassing end to Dallas’ season, but both remained optimistic that Moore would help the offense.
He’ll likely mesh more of the pro-style elements of his offense with the shotgun-heavy offense that Philadelphia ran. Hurts, who had improved essentially each year of his collegiate and professional career before this season, could find new life under Moore’s tutelage.
It may not be a perfect marriage, but the Eagles have the talent and, potentially, the coaching, to remain dangerous in the NFC East.
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