8/27/11

He got no respect out of high school and not much coming out of college. He was considered too small and not strong enough. But now, what you did before, how much you can lift or who you played for and against doesn't mean squat. At this level, the highest level, the only thing that matters is whether a player can contribute to the team's success on the field.
I believe Jason has answered that question.

From www.philadelphiaegles.com:

Jackson: There's No Competition
By Chris McPherson
Posted 4 hours ago

Jamaal Jackson does not believe that there's any competition for the starting center job.

"You call it a competition if you want. I don't. That's pretty much it," Jackson said. "There's no competition. Whoever's in there is the starter, point blank. I'm just out here working. Whoever the coaches feel as though that can get the job done they'll put that person in there and right now that's not me."

Rookie sixth-round pick Jason Kelce split the first-team reps with Jackson since the start of training camp. Jackson started the first two preseason games, but Kelce lined up with the first-team offense for last Thursday's all-important dress rehearsal against the Browns. Kelce returned to the first-team lineup in Saturday's practice.

"I thought he did a good job. Now listen, everybody, we all have stuff that we have to work on, but he did a nice job considering he’s a young guy," head coach Andy Reid said of Kelce’s performance against Cleveland. "He’s one of the guys we’re talking about that got a little bit better than he was in Pittsburgh and can continue to build on what he had learned there with the extended reps, so I was fairly pleased with him."

also:

Kelce Takes First-Team Reps At Center

By Chris McPherson
Posted 6 hours ago

Head coach Andy Reid said that Jason Kelce took the first-team reps at center during Saturday's practice as the team worked on specific issues that arose from Thursday's preseason win over the Browns.

The rookie sixth-round pick started for the first time this preseason against the Browns despite splitting reps with Jamaal Jackson since the start of training camp. Jackson started the first two preseason games, but was the second-team center last Thursday.

Now it's on to the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl.

8/25/11
Tonight's Jason's big night; a good showing could lead to a starting shot during the regular season. He has a short one-on-one interview here:
http://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/multimedia/videos/One-on-One-Jason-Kelce/e0cf8f4e-9294-451c-b4f7-70a13bf17acd

Check this out:

"This is not about glamour. And some may not even notice. But the Eagles are making an extraordinary move with an unlikely player at a critical position against Cleveland ..."

Adam Caplan is an NFL analyst on Fox Sports, Scout.com, one of the hosts of the NFL channel on Sirrius radio and a Fantasy football advisor. Listen to what he says in the first few minutes of this interview:

"Adam Caplan joins Chris and Bo to discuss the recent depth chart moves the Eagles have made ..."

This is getting crazy.

GO BUBBA!!!!

I think it's time we get off POTUS back about the vacation thing. There is nothing he can do about the economy, short of reducing regulations, open up more opportunities for drilling oil and stop the talk about selfish rich people. The left will disown him if he does any of that and those on the right will not allow him to spend even more money. The guy was dealt a losing hand to begin with. He's a nice guy. I believe him to be honest in that he really believes in the liberal solutions he's championed. The only problem is they don't work; never have and never will. Higher gas prices don't reduce global warming, they just screw working stiffs and struggling families. 401k's down??? That's not a big fuckin deal to folks living from paycheck to paycheck. Extending unemployment benefits just gives people false hope that the $25 per hour jobs are coming (which never happens) and people never go after new, entry-level opportunities. New EPA and Banking regulations just scare the job creators; as does the tax, tax, tax rhetoric. And who does all this hurt? The limousine liberals and the intellectually elite moderates aren't suffering; just the little guy.
The Obama administration started with the economy in a hole, but he failed to take the most important first step; STOP DIGGING.
Why is it that when either the far right or the far left holds power, the only guy that suffers is the working stiff?

But at least football is back.

8/23/11
2 new articles about Jason:
Eagles Notebook: Big week for Eagles' rookie center Kelce

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/20110822_Eagles_Notebook__Big_week_for_Eagles__rookie_center_Kelce.html

I've included a snippet of another article here:
From: The Bird's Eye View
The Inquirer's Eagles Blog
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Who Makes the Cut: OL
Posted by Jeff McLane @ 11:12 AM
"...........Locks: Jason Peters is your starting left tackle. Live with it. Todd Herremans is the left guard unless Andy Reid and company decide that myriad number of (not very attractive) options at right tackle don’t make them queasy. Then Herremans could slide outside, although the Eagles hope to avoid such a move. Top draft pick Danny Watkins is still penciled in as the starting right guard, although he’s a project. Jason Kelce has eked out ahead of stalwart Jamaal Jackson for the starting center spot. Whether he wins or not – and it says here he does – the sixth-round rookie isn’t going anywhere."

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-eagles/Who-Makes-the-Cut-OL.html

This Thursday will be historic in the fact that I've never rooted against the Browns before. I hope they can get over it.

8/10/11
The Prez ain't got a clue. He sings the same song over and over about how everything is the fault of Bush and rich people. Keynesian economics has failed again and he doesn't know what to do.
Elections have consequences.

On a brighter note: Jason isn't just competing for a spot on the final roster,

"Rookie Jason Kelce Is Challenging Jamaal Jackson For The Center Job"

Check out the articles written about him in the last few days:
8/10/11
8/09/11
8/08/11
8/07/11
8/06/11

I watched some of today's Eagles' practice online and I'm hearing Jason's name mentioned a lot. Coach Reid was asked about him and responded that Jason was a smart kid, tough kid and that he is learning. I've observed that Jason takes snaps with the 1's some of the time and most of the snaps with the 2's. I believe that says a lot. Jason is non-committal when asked what that all means. He just says he's working hard and trying to learn as fast as he can. I get the sense that he doesn't want to comment on his position with the team and read his comments on someone's twitter or facebook page. Reid has said that Jamaal Jackson is his starting center. However, on a few of the fan forums there is talk of a competition between Kelce and Jackson and on the Eagles homepage some commentators have spoke of the competition for the starting center. Jason says that Jamaal is helping him a lot and actually tutoring him on the system. I'm guessing that Jamaal is the starting center, but Jason will get significant playing time, at least in the preseason. Note that Jamaal has been injured and missed significant playing time during the past few seasons.

All things considered, I'd have to say;

"Bubba doin good."

Here we go again; football season is upon us. Jason signed his contract with the Eagles on Wednesday and began practice yesterday. You can watch practice live at www.philadelphiaeagles.com. Yesterday Jason worked at guard with the second unit. I think he aso worked at center a little bit. I spoke with him briefly, but he had a lot to do. We shall see.

Summer quarter is over; Travis passed all his classes and is enjoying a brief vacation in Atlanta with his Mom. We all have high hopes for him as he begins what he believes will be his "breakout" season. Plans currently have him at tight end with the potential for some time at running back and maybe even defensive end. Travis is in great shape, bigger and stronger than ever, with a great attitude and his head in the right place. Look out Big East. This is gonna be fun.

I firmly believe that the country will rebound, regardless of what congress and POTUS do; whether they pass a debt increase or not. It won't be easy and there will be consequences, but we will survive and will have learned an important lesson: elections matter. Out of control union and government pensions along with ridiculously liberal lending policies sent us down a path of destruction. Then we elected a liberal congress in 2006 along with an avowed Leftist to the Executive branch in 2008, and our fate was sealed. But like I said, we will survive; and be stronger for it.

This has been an eventful month for Jason. He began the month apparently battling the stomach flu that had plagued him since before the combine and he finally decided to seek medical help. Lo and behold, he wasn’t suffering from any virus, but from appendicitis. He had a CAT scan and Ultrasound on Tuesday (March 8), after his blogtalk.com interview with PatriotRadio. He was admitted to the hospital and surgery was preformed on Wednesday. He went back to the house with his team mates on Thursday to recuperate. His orders are not to exercise for at least 2 weeks, which kinda wrecks his Pro Day on March 28. The net effect of all this will probably be to reduce his pre-draft value, which will cost him money and some well-deserved recognition of his efforts. He’ll probably have to earn his way via hard work into the League; just like college.
Recognition can come in 4 years when he is negotiating a 2nd contract and the majority of guys drafted before him are out of the game.
The following was taken from an NFL News page by Vic Carucci:

Toughing it out
Jason Kelce didn't know it at the time, but the severe stomach pain and nausea he experienced at the recent NFL Scouting Combine were symptoms of appendicitis. That didn't stop the University of Cincinnati guard from taking part in all aspects of the combine, including workouts. And it didn't prevent him from recording combine bests for his position in the 40-yard dash (4.89 seconds), the 20-yard shuttle (4.14 seconds) and 3-cone drill (7.22 seconds).
"The stomach was bothering me all week; I was going from interviews (with teams) literally right to the toilet throwing up," Kelce told me during an interview on SIRIUS NFL Radio. "I tried to look as good as I could in the interviews and handle them as well as I possibly could, and I thought I ended up doing a pretty good job."
Kelce's best work, though, came on the field, despite the fact he wasn't able to get much sleep. Late one night, he contacted a physician the combine made available to participants, but there was still no diagnosis of appendicitis. Kelce, whose weight dropped to 280 pounds from his normal 295, also began feeling better by the time he was scheduled to work out and decided to give it a shot.
"For a couple of days, I started feeling better, and I thought it had run its (course)," he said. "And then, all of a sudden, it just hit me again, and this time the stomach pains were a lot worse."
About a week after the combine, Kelce checked into an emergency room and wound up undergoing an emergency appendectomy. He is still recovering and won't be able to take part in drills at Cincinnati's pro day on March 28. But one would have to think that NFL scouts are going to be impressed with the remarkable grit he demonstrated at the combine.

I just got this email and had to post it. It's not original and I have no idea if it is true; but it sure is funny.

These are actual comments made by Police Officers. The comments were taken off actual police car
videos around the country:

"You know, stop lights don't come any redder than the one you just went through."

"Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch after you wear them a while."

"If you take your hands off the car, I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document."

"If you run, you'll only go to jail tired."

"Can you run faster than 1200 feet per second? Because that's the speed of the bullet that'll be chasing you."

"You don't know how fast you were going? I guess that means I can write anything I want to on the ticket, huh?"

"Yes, sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh, did I mention that I'm the shift supervisor?"

"Warning! You want a warning? O.K, I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket."

"The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?"

"Fair? You want me to be fair? Listen, fair is a place where you go to ride on rides, eat cotton candy and corn dogs and step in monkey poop."

"Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven."

"In God we trust; all others we run through NCIC." ( National Crime Information Center )

"Just how big were those 'two beers' you say you had?"

"No sir, we don't have quotas anymore. We used to, but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we can."

"I'm glad to hear that the Chief (of Police) is a personal friend of yours. So you know someone who can post your bail."

"You didn't think we give pretty women tickets? You're right, we don't.. now sign here."

It would be hard to imagine a rockier start to a new career than what Jason went through at the NFL Combine this past week. He came down with the stomach flu Sunday night and weighed in at 280lbs.. As funny as it may sound, that is considered too small for NFL linemen. As you can imagine his strength was depleted, which means that he didn’t do the bench press and that is not be a good thing for him. The good news is that he interviews well and he can still weigh in heavier and demonstrate a good bench press number at his Pro Day in Cincinnati. In spite of being weak from the flu, he ran the fastest 40 yard sprint among O-Linemen (4.89), broad jumped farther (9’2”) and set a combine record in the 20 yard shuttle (4.12) for big men. Bottom line: he made enough of an impact that he should get a good turnout at his Pro Day.

Here we go again; got a little sidetracked the last few months. Between a tough season of UC football and a variety of other issues, time just got away from me. The good news is things are going well. Jason graduated in December and is currently training for the NFL combine. Travis made the Dean's list last fall and is doing well this quarter. He is looking forward to a big year in football: Coach Jones is considering having him play on both sides of the ball and that will be interesting. Skuttlebutt has it that Jason has moved up to being a mid-round draft prospect. We shall see.

If we are hoping to save the economy with "green jobs", we're in big trouble. Last May POTUS spoke at a solar panel manufacturer in California named Solyndra, celebrating the plans to add a new plant that would create 1000 pernament jobs. Those plans have been shelved. Another solar panel manufacturer, Evergreen Solar, got $43 million from the government in 2008. That company just laid off 800 workers and farmed out the labor to China.

Scientists around the globe are disassociating themselves with "global warming" at an alarming rate. They seem to be gravitating towards a new cause of global climate change: the sun's effect on the earth's magnetic field. You can read a nice article about that theory here. Big Al isn't backing down; he claims that the winter storms we have been hammered with this year are being caused by his global warming.

Jason had his first timing in the 40 last week - 4.7 and he believes it will get better before the combine With his size and strength at that speed: can anyone say "FREIGHT TRAIN"? Check out his Facebook Fanpage here.