Brotherly Love is the "Kelce" Secret Sauce

A worthwhile docu-stream about football, family, love and letting go.

I have a confession to make.

In the 3 years that I’ve been doing this Substack, I rarely ever repost, but it’s time.

Football Time, That Is

The two football championships - the AFC and NFC games - that we’re all still recovering from watching over the weekend warrant this action. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re still OK to be here and read this post.

It has to do with the Detroit Lions losing painfully to a great and worthy adversary, the San Fran 49ers.

Lions’ Coach Campbell expressing what all of us underdog supporters felt in that soul crushing moment when we realized the Lions blew a 24-7 lead to lose the game:

Source: Star Tribune / Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell speaks at a news conference after the NFC Championship game.

On the AFC championship side, we have the Kansas City Chiefs and the bro-fest that is Mahomes-Kelce making their way back once again to the Taj Mahal of football game events in America.

Consider the facts:

Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes has been in 4 of the the past 7 Super Bowls.

Taylor Swift began dating Chiefs Tight End Kelce sometime ahead of the NFL season and has been spotted at 12 of the team’s games. She also hasn’t had Eras tour dates conflict with these games. Nothing wrong with this. More just covering all the bases that I’m personally invested in.

Source: People / Kelce and Swift embrace after the Chiefs win the AFC

The Lions have only made it to one other playoff in their entire existence - and that was 32 years ago. This also coincides with the 1st Summer I attended Interlochen Arts Camp in northern Michigan which later paved the path for me attending University of Michigan.

The 49ers have 8 wins in the playoffs in the past 10 years.

Now that I’ve filled your mind with data about dynasty franchises and playoff-specific experience begetting future playoff wins, let’s take a look at Kelce, the documentary about Travis and his older brother Jason, also an NFL football player.

Jason was in the news most recently for taking his shirt off while attending the Bills v Chiefs game live in a very public display affection for his brother’s touchdown catch in the lead up to the AFC Championship game.

Source: People / Jason Kelce, also the subject of a documentary

Originally posted on October 4th 2023:

"Kelce" says something about the brutality and brotherhood of playing pro football

Also the importance of grabbing and holding onto the fame that feeds and sustains you.

Kelce, a documentary about Jason Kelce’s purported final year of playing pro football is streaming on Prime.

Grade: B+ (Gets a bit deeper into the lives of Jason and Travis Kelce and their families. High marks for shining a light on the “after life” reality for pro ballers. Jason, as a subject is compelling enough, making this worthwhile.)

The Kelce brothers are having a moment in the U.S. I think we can all agree.

A shirt that is for sale on Etsy. References the jersey # for Swift’s new boyfriend, Travis Kelce, a tight end, and arguably the best in the NFL at what he does, for the Kansas City Chiefs.

But Let’s Be Kind & Rewind

Context first:

• Jason and Travis Kelce are two brothers who play for professional football teams [in the National Football League, or NFL] and whose teams, Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City (KC) Chiefs, are ranked at the top of the 32 NFL teams.

• They squared off in the Super Bowl last year and KC won. It was a big deal because as we learn in the documentary Kelce, Jason is getting on in professional sports’ years and was considering 2022-2023 to be his final season.

  • As an aside, per Wikipedia, Jason is a Super Bowl champion (2018), six-time Pro Bowl selection, and five-time first-team All-Pro selection. And if you think that’s a mouthful of achievement, his little brother Travis won Super Bowls LIV and LVII and is considered one of the greatest tight ends of all time. He holds the NFL record for most consecutive and most overall seasons with 1,000 yards receiving by a tight end. Yeah I kinda got lost in the last sentence too, but it’s a big deal so stick with me.

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer / Jason Kelce, on the left plays Center meaning he gets hit near his head A LOT and Travis Kelce on the right plays Tight End meaning he catches a lot of balls.

Life after the NFL

The most recent published data supporting post-NFL life outlook for players I could find on Google is ~2016 and here’s where it’s at:

The average NFL career lasts 3.3 years, according to the NFL Players' Association; 78 percent of players go broke within three years of retirement and 15.7 percent file for bankruptcy within 12 years of leaving the league, according to a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Now, the Kelce brothers aren’t most NFL players. As of 2023, Jason Kelce's net worth stands at an impressive $40 million, according to Pro Football Network. Travis banks about $12.3 Million a game. They both just launched a second season of a #1 sports podcast with the most ridiculous name btw, called “New Heights” that has them being paid a healthy salary. They are media moguls. That isn’t the norm.

The norm is that 78% of players go broke within 3 years of retirement at least as of data published 7 years ago.

Joe Pompliano

has a pretty in depth post about the origins of “New Heights” and the Kelce’s media empire so I’ll let you read more there. It’s good stuff.

How Jason And Travis Kelce Created The #1 Podcast In Sports

And Now Back to the Show

The ability to think about what’s coming next, after football, is really the subject of the Prime documentary, Kelce, which is a worthwhile watch for both fans of football, or these brothers, or anyone questioning their next life chapter. It’s always better to think about what’s next when you’re already comfortable in the present. I appreciated that Jason Kelce has a group of retired NFL buddies from different stages of life who all meet and talk about the realities of post-pro ball. It was a beautiful, healthy wondrous thing to behold.

Let’s be real for a second. Jason Kelce is 35 36 and has access to a rolodex of business contacts and wealth generating/building opportunities for his future, not to mention a shit-ton of money that he’s earned while having his body endure a pretty bad beating for the last 20+ years. He’s concerned about his long term brain health. His wife is concerned that if he plays more football he won’t be able to play on the floor with this kids. No joke. He has trouble walking. That’s something most folks aren’t having to contend with on a daily basis, social media jokes aside.

Acknowledging both the privilege and the hard work, Kelce frames what it is to have to balance internal motivation with external pressures, the desire to forge a new identity when you’ve only been compensated for being really damn good at the one thing, and playing a bunch of roles (husband, dad, teammate, son, brother, etc.) while living with an abundance of creature comforts.

Jason expresses his existential dilemma as he ponders returning for the 2023-2024 season:

“Every logical thing is telling me I should stop playing football,” he says. Again, he knows the risks he’s taking, for a game. But for him, it’s about the feeling he gets fighting every day. To have to constantly prove your worth is hard, but it keeps you alive, he says, holding back tears. That’s what he’s afraid to be without.

“I have no doubt I can be a loving father. I have no doubt that I can be successful. But where am I gonna get that?” he asks. “Where am I gonna be the best in the world at what I f***in’ do and not because of anything other than I go out there and earned it?”

The likability factor of Jason and his entire family, including his wife, Kylie and their 2 toddler girls + one girl born at the end of the documentary timeline, is high. They emit authenticity and they are smart, irreverent, and funny in a way that maybe the Kardashians did back in 2007. They reveal certain intimate challenges of being married, sharing the parental and partner workload, wanting to secure a long future together in good physical and mental health and speak honest truths.

The parts of the film I loved were the ones that focused on family - the vulnerability of Jason’s marriage and its funny and hard moments, the beauty in being a big brother and someone who looks out for his little, sexy bro Travis and guides him wisely but also knows when to poke fun, and ultimately someone who is trying to figure out if he really wants to do cattle raising for the rest of his life and if not, then what? Yes, we’ve all had analogous work moments like this to contend with. Myself, not perhaps as agrarian in focus but I’ll put that down to body size, frame and physical strength.

I mean the ultimate test of a familial bond and sibling relationship is probably competing against one another, and in something as exceptional as the Super Bowl so this was definitely a climactic point in the film. Jason’s daughter stole the moment by speaking truth to at least what 50% of us were thinking:

Trigger Warning: Lots of f-bombs in this documentary, especially in Jason’s pre-Super Bowl inspirational talk with the team which apparently is available via web series called Unscripted about the Philadelphia Eagles’ road to redemption.

Taylor Swift is Bringing It to the Games

The NFL buzz of the past month all season has been the romance brewing between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, who has brought back the popularity of the 1980s pornstache with a vengeance and per a recent episode of “New Heights” is in no hurry to remove it.

For those of you both repulsed and inspired who, like myself, are somewhat inspired by the love match here (I myself vacillate as often as the weather changes in New England in the past month) perhaps it’s time to embrace Taylor’s “F*ck it” era. After all, a woman should be able to have her gushers + fruit roll-ups and not be judged but celebrated:

Okay fine twist my arm I'll write about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

Note: This original post from October was somewhat condensed down for relevance. For instance, I removed timely, early 2023 NFL season pics of Swift and her game day box posse (a constant has been Brittany Mahomes) and a pic of Aaron Rodgers because he doesn’t warrant any more publicity. Not on my clock. Period.

Football Films that Inspire

Discussion

• Even if you’re not usually a football viewer, did Taylor Swift’s presence motivate you to watch this year?

• Did you expect me to write about football? I generally don’t. It’s an odd fact of my personality that I’m a pretty competitive (when it comes to just about anything I can decently do) and a passionate and loyal fan of certain sports’ teams.

  

  The Chicago Bulls’ fans - My sisters and I circa 1991 (?) I wish I still had the Michael Jordan shirt.

• Do you have a stake in which team wins the Super Bowl? Any fantasy football people?

• What’s your only or fondest Super Bowl memory? Mine involved The Fridge aka Walter Payton in Super Bowl XX in 1985. Yup.