Jason Kelce’s meltdown over rookie hazing, intern Matt Nagy’s tryout with the Eagles, and more from ‘New Heights’

Jason and Travis Kelce have a lot of things in common, but one of them is being coached by Matt Nagy.

The former Chicago Bears head coach worked for the Eagles from 2008-2012, going from intern to offensive quality control coach. He then spent 2013-17 with the Chiefs, following Andy Reid from Philly, before leaving for the top job in Chicago. After four seasons there, Nagy returned in 2022 to Kansas City, where he currently serves as the offensive coordinator.

The Kelce brothers welcomed Nagy on their New Heights podcast Wednesday, and they spoke about his almost-Eagles playing career, coaching the Kelces, and meeting the brothers as rookies.

When Nagy was an intern with the Eagles, there was a day that the team was down a few players — including quarterback Michael Vick — and he was asked to step in.

“Coach [Reid] goes, ‘Do you have an agent? Are you in shape? Do you know the playbook?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, yes, and yes,’” Nagy said. “And I really didn’t know the playbook. I wasn’t in shape. But I ended up getting to have one day in practice. And then they said ‘You know what? No, dude. You’re out. You can’t do it. They nixed it.’”

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Although Nagy didn’t go into specifics of what transpired that day, he did say there’s now a rule against interns participating in practice. So, it must not have gone too well — but at least Nagy looks back fondly.

“I got one day in the sun.”

Nagy also told a story from Jason’s rookie year training camp in 2011. Coaches and players were interrupted during a special teams meeting late one night, and you guessed it, the disturbance was Jason.

“And all of a sudden you just hear this cursing and freaking out and like yelling. And just all of a sudden, running up the steps, these doors pop open and this big grizzly bear just pops out of nowhere … he starts just pounding on the special teams — in the middle of the meeting, he’s pounding on the special teams door. [He] pops it open and it’s just like, ‘Who the [expletive] did this? Who messed with my car? You toilet papered my car, you stuck a banana in the pipe, you Saran wrapped it! Who the [expletive] did it?’”

Jason and Travis both laughed, remembering when it happened and how the older Kelce called his little brother, then in college at Cincinnati, to complain. Nagy said it was so memorable that he still tells rookies that story every year.

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“All these guys are in the middle of a special teams meeting, turning around like, what are talking about? Here’s a rookie interrupting the special teams meeting wanting to kill somebody for messing with his car in the middle of training camp,” Nagy said.

Nagy said the coaches loved it, loved the fire that Jason came in with.

“‘Are you kidding? We got someone here,’” Nagy recalled. “’This guy is psycho.”

Kelce said former Eagles receiver Jason Avant even came out after and said the bangs were so loud he thought a gun was going off.

“Sometimes you just got to show you’re a little nuts,” Travis said.

“I didn’t have an issue with that. It’s easy when you’re nuts,” Jason replied.

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It wasn’t just Jason’s craziness that earned him the respect of his fellow players. Nagy said Travis, like Jason before him, helps coach the newer players on the team, and it clicks better due to the “respect factor.”

“[Travis is] the greatest tight end to ever play the game. [Jason], you’re the greatest center to ever play the game. I mean, that’s an unbelievable tandem. And for me to be able to coach you guys and see like what you guys were as mentors … it’s special and it really honestly makes coaching fun.”