Eagles center Kelce picks brain of Pro Bowler Saturday

JASON KELCE traveled to Indianapolis last month during the NFL Scouting Combine. The Eagles' center wasn't looking for a do-over, after performing there the previous year while ill with what turned out to be appendicitis. No, his draft ship sailed for good last spring, with Kelce stuck in steerage as an Eagles sixth-round selection, perhaps suffering the fallout from showing up at Indy as a sickly 280-pounder.

As has happened a few times in Kelce's career, what looked like a serious setback actually worked out real well. Kelce, who still managed to run the fastest 40 of any o-lineman at the 2011 combine (4.93), ended up starting all 16 games for the Eagles, playing under offensive line coach Howard Mudd, the perfect mentor for a quick, undersized blocker. No rookie center had started every game before, in the 79-year-history of the franchise.

This February, at Mudd's behest, Kelce headed for Indy to meet with former Colts center Jeff Saturday. They didn't talk much about Mudd, the prickly, 70-year-old legend who cut the Eagles' sack total by 17 in his first year on the job. Kelce figured he was doing fine with Mudd, what he really needed was some situation-specific advice.

This is one of the qualities the Eagles prize in Kelce, whose outstanding rookie year more or less got lost in the uproar over the Birds' 2011 pratfall. It is kinda tough to throw a former walk-on linebacker at Cincinnati into the middle of your o-line as a rookie, with no minicamps, and expect him to pick up a complex scheme and thrive. But Kelce, who earned a marketing degree while playing for the Bearcats, is as poised and nimble off the field as on.

This week he explained to a reporter what he thought he struggled with as a rookie, and what he wanted to know from Saturday, who played in five Pro Bowls and won a Super Bowl with Mudd in Indianapolis before moving on to the Packers in free agency a week ago.

"One of the main areas I struggled in was pass protection. Not giving up sacks, but early in the season, setting the correct way. Later in the season, I would set the correct way, but I would do it [identically] every single time, so that the defensive lineman starts to pick up on that, he can get in a rhythm, he can do more moves," Kelce said.

"A thing that Jeff utilizes a lot, he uses his left hand as a jab . . . There's variations you can go with that. You can throw it out there and stick it in and grab him right away, or you can just bop him on the head and get him all out of whack, or you can even just flash it [as a fake]. He said after you start doing that a little bit, they'll start to back up, because they don't want you to get that reach on 'em. Once they start backing up, it's going to take 'em longer to get to you."

Kelce said he also was very interested in the dynamic that developed among Saturday, quarterback Peyton Manning and Mudd, during their time with the Colts, and what lessons Kelce might apply to his relationship with Mudd and Michael Vick.

"Us three are the three guys that really handle the mental capacity of the protections," Kelce said. "We have to know on each play, why Mike's changing it, or, let's say Mike isn't seeing it on a certain play and I have to change it [at the line]. We've got to all be on the same page . . . What are you going to do if they're in Cover 1 and the nickel 'backers all walk up on the line. Who are you going to make the MIKE? What's going to happen?" he said.

One way to understand why the Birds are so high on Kelce is to watch tape of him pulling in front of LeSean McCoy last season, as McCoy dipped and darted to a career-high 1,309-yard year and his first Pro Bowl berth. Another is to listen to Eagles coach Andy Reid, who extolled his 24-year-old center at this week's NFL meetings in Florida.

"This kid could be, like, Howard's son," Reid said. "Not only do they look alike and act alike, their playing styles are the same."

Like Kelce, Mudd was undersized, listed generously at 6-2, 254, the height reading maybe even more optimistic than Kelce's official 6-3. Kelce said he played last season at 290, hopes to report at 305 this summer. He replaced 6-4, 325-pound Jamaal Jackson, a more powerful, much less mobile lineman.

"He's a phenomenal athlete, to start with," Reid said of Kelce. "Howard asks his center to get out into space, to pull, which is a tough thing for a center. He's right on top of the ball and everybody else is lining up back on his hip. So he's got to get around a lot of garbage there when he pulls. He's able to do that with ease. He can sustain blocks out in the open area. On top of that, he's a smart kid."

Left guard Evan Mathis, asked about Kelce, said: "He's smart and athletic. Combine those two qualities with a drive to improve, and you have someone who could play this game for a long time."

Kelce's attributes were considerably less in demand when he came out of Cleveland Heights High as a linebacker and running back who couldn't get a Division I-A scholarship. He thought he saw a chance at Cincinnati, playing linebacker as a preferred walk-on under head coach Mark Dantonio, but Dantonio promptly left for Michigan State during Kelce's freshman year. In 2007, when new coach Brian Kelly and strength coach Paul Longo told Kelce to try playing center that spring, he wondered if he'd made the wrong college choice.

"At 240 pounds, I played the rest of the spring at center," Kelce recalled.

When, at the end of spring practice, they told him the move would be permanent, he told them he'd just as soon transfer out, before he gained 40 pounds and tried to learn a completely different position while paying for the privilege. They told him if he agreed to gain the weight and switch sides of the ball, they'd put him on scholarship. That was the magic word.

It helped that Longo had built a niche moving skill-position players to the line. He had done it at Central Michigan with tight end-turned-tackle Joe Staley, who became a first-round draft pick and a Pro Bowler for the 49ers. At Cincinnati, while Kelce was there, Longo moved another tight end, Connor Barwin, to defensive end. Barwin became a second-round draft choice of Houston in 2009, where he now is a 3-4 linebacker.

"They flourish because they have much more athletic ability than the guys who are already there, for the most part," Kelce said.

"He was agile and ornery, all those things we were looking for, and he could carry the weight," Longo said Thursday from Notre Dame, where he now is strength coach, again under Kelly. "It worked out pretty good . . . Jason's got great feet. He can get out and run. He's not tall enough for tackle" so interior line seemed the way to go.

Longo said part of his sales pitch was that Kelce had the ability to be an NFL center, which is quite a projection for a walk-on linebacker. Still, Kelce said he had a big adjustment, from looking forward to making the big hit to the less tangible goals of o-line play, such as consistency.

"It's definitely a culture shift . . . I think that defensive mentality is much more of a killer instinct, much more of a momentum-based side of the ball . . . If you're playing offense like a defensive player, you're going to be out of position a lot. Offense is just so much more cerebral," Kelce said.

Kelce's challenge this offseason has been rehabbing a foot sprain suffered in the season-ending victory over the Redskins. Right guard Danny Watkins fell on Kelce's right foot, causing a mild Lisfranc sprain and a couple of hairline fractures of metatarsals. Kelce expects to be ready to roll in plenty of time for the first minicamp.

Longo said he feels Kelce still has room to develop, and will.

"Time will tell. This kid is an absolute warrior," Longo said. "He is going to play and fight to the death. You want that kid in your foxhole, period. He's going to make himself into a heckuva football player. It might take a little bit of time, but that's just in his nature. His intangibles are just off the charts."