Jason Kelce takes you inside the ‘illuminati’ room where the Tush Push debate went down

In a 22-10 vote by NFL owners, the Green Bay Packers’ proposal to ban the Eagles’ signature Tush Push was rejected last Wednesday, and most Eagles fans are looking at one person as their savior: Jason Kelce.

The former Eagles center joined Jeffrey Lurie as they traveled to Minnesota to advocate for the Tush Push at the NFL owners meetings. Kelce arrived at the “courtroom,” which he later described as a “conference room at the hotel we were staying at,” wearing a collared shirt, blazer, and a pair of boat shoes as he prepared to defend the play he once perfected.

“The reason I was there was because there was a narrative out there that one of the reasons I was retired was because of the play — or that I somehow felt like the play led to more injuries or was injured because of it,” Kelce said on the latest episode of New Heights. “So I was really just there to offer my perspective on that stuff not being true and the fact that I think it’s a relatively safe play.

“I did go up there and talk after Jeffrey Lurie kind of started things off. He kind of opened everything up. And then I kind of dispelled those rumors and then answered some questions about how the play was run.”

Although the Super Bowl champion has taken on many new roles postretirement, participating in the meeting with NFL owners was unfamiliar for the future Hall of Famer.

“It felt really surreal to be in that room, like I was in some very inner sanctum,” Kelce recently said on 94 WIP. “I don’t know if the illuminati was real, but I feel like that room was probably as close as it gets. It was wild.”

But before the seven-time Pro Bowler took the stand, Lurie started the Tush Push conversations.

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“One [owner] that stood out the most was Jeffrey because, you know, obviously he’s passionate about this,” Kelce said on this week’s episode of New Heights. “This play has been a big part of the Eagles’ success. … I think Jeffrey was pretty passionate about trying to get his point across.”

Kelce, who on WIP said Lurie was about a seven out of 10 in terms of intensity, was feeling optimistic heading into the vote, which ultimately fell two shy of the 24 votes needed to pass the Packers’ proposal to ban the Tush Push.

“I don’t know if we swayed anybody’s opinion, but I could tell just in the way the back and forth went that there were people that were still up in the air with it,” Kelce told WIP. “If everybody would have been decided on it, there wouldn’t have been any questions asked. … It felt like there was an open dialogue on the floor, which to me felt like there were people genuinely still trying to decide.”

After the speeches, Kelce left the room and didn’t find out about the vote until he received a text from a former teammate.

“I didn’t find out the results of the vote because they went into another session that they were like, ‘Hey, get this flappy out [of] here,’” Kelce said on WIP. “This is the true inner sanctum moment. I didn’t know how it went. I was going back to my hotel room, and I got a text from my man, Jordan Mailata, who found out before me because he found out from, I’m assuming, Twitter or something like that. And Jordan Mailata said, ‘Thanks for your service, another year of pushing tush.’”

Mailata is just one of many now thanking Kelce.

In fact, Travis Kelce may have said it best: “Jason, you saved the Tush Push. Everyone in Philly has been saved. You’re like a [expletive] hero.”