After Peyton and Eli Manning, Jason and Travis Kelce are the NFL‘s most successful brotherly duo. While they played for different teams, the Kelce brothers share a close bond, highlighted by Jason’s neutrality during Super Bowl 59, where Travis’ Kansas City Chiefs were up against the team he spent his whole career with, the Philadelphia Eagles.
However, the bond wasn’t always there, and the Eagles legend recently revealed that they used to go months without talking to each other.
Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce Wouldn’t Talk for Months Before Podcast Venture
Jason joined the Eagles in 2011 and spent over a decade of his life in Philadelphia, away from his brother Travis, who debuted in the NFL two years after him. The distance between Philadelphia and Kansas City also distanced the brothers from each other, and they used to not talk to each other for months.
Then, in September 2022, the Kelces launched the “New Heights” podcast and have since been “forced” to sit with each other every week, which Jason termed the best part about their $100 million asset.
“The best part of the podcast is just getting to talk to Travis,” he told Bustle. “Before we started the podcast, we would go months sometimes without talking to each other. The podcast forces us once a week to sit down and talk to each other.
“We both have a lot going on in our lives, and it’s been fun — after all these years being in different cities and fighting to make it in the football landscape — to rekindle the amount of times that we talk and the closeness that we have growing up our entire lives.”
Jason, who retired in 2023, further spoke about his current relationship with Travis and said he tried to be a person of support rather than advice for the Chiefs’ tight end.
“I try not to be too much of an advice person and more like a support person [for Travis]…If he asks me for stuff or my opinion on whatnot, I’ll be there for him. I’ve never tried to tell him what to do or how to do things. I firmly believe you’ve got to go and learn that stuff for yourself and figure that out.”
Travis Kelce is indeed figuring out things himself and his retirement plans after the Chiefs got walloped 40-22 in the Super Bowl. The Pro Bowl tight end finished with four receptions for 39 yards, which was enough to break Jerry Rice’s record for most career catches in Super Bowl history at 35 years old.