Jason Kelce brought his typical charismatic personality in his debut on ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown in Week 1. But one moment, in particular, garnered the admiration of his brother Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.
Kelce appeared to be well-prepped for his new role in terms of his actual contributions to the show. But in terms of his wardrobe, he was far from ready.
After being welcomed to the show by host Scott Van Pelt, Kelce admitted that the shirt he was wearing was bought just before the show after forgetting his travel bag and that it was restricting his “tits.”
“Collectively, we are thrilled to welcome in a six-time first-team All-NFL selection,” Van Pelt said. “Super Bowl champion, future gold jacket wearer, he’s got a podcast that apparently is doing fairly well and all that said, Jason Kelce is wearing a shirt he got at the mall because he left his travel bag in the truck.”
“It fits my belly now, I’ve lost a little bit of weight, but my tits are still struggling,” Kelce joked, giving his shirt a tug to cover his chest.
Jason Kelce’s Monday Night Countdown (regular season) debut is going the most Jason Kelce way possible: pic.twitter.com/lPPT4rz79E
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 9, 2024
On the latest episode of the New Heights podcast, Travis let Jason know that both he and Taylor Swift loved his brother’s on-air reference to his “tits.”
“Me and Taylor (Swift) were watching it, absolutely dying laughing at that. It was the perfect thing to open everybody up to what they are going to experience the next 18 weeks,” said Travis. “First of all, do we think it’s the first time tits has been said on ESPN?”
“I don’t know,” Jason Kelce replied. “I got asked on Twitter and even when I said it… Tits is a funny word because I think it’s allowable. It’s not against the rules to say on a broadcast. But it’s definitely something you wouldn’t typically say on a broadcast. You know what I mean? It’s like one of those words that doesn’t belong on a broadcast.”
Travis then asked his brother about the actual broadcast and how he felt in his debut, aside from the clearly undersized shirt, where he admitted that he was very nervous but that he “had a lot of fun.”
“It’s like anything you do your first time. I did not feel prepared. I felt very nervous, I didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “And then you realize that you were prepared and ESPN did a great job of setting everything up. Thankfully for me, you’re on set with three other guys who have done it a bunch. Ryan (Clark) was saving me.
“There was one time where I was struggling for the word to say. I was nervous, there is no two ways about it. Whenever you’re doing something for the first time and you don’t know what to expect, I think that’s natural. It was a lot of fun and I think that me being up there with guys that had done it before and are so good at it, you feel more comfortable the moment you start doing it with them.”
Much like Tom Brady in his new analyst role at Fox, Kelce will naturally get more comfortable as the season goes on. He just may want to double-check that he has the correct size shirt for the Week 2 edition of Monday Night Countdown.
