Jason Kelce addresses Eagles-Colts brawl, calls his hit on Zaire Franklin a “cheap shot”

The Eagles had a joint practice with the Colts on Tuesday that ended early due to a sideline clearing brawl between teams.

After Zaire Franklin hit Kenny Gainwell late for a second time, Jason Kelce couldn’t contain his emotion and pummeled Franklin to the ground. This sparked the rest of the team to follow suit, with pushing, shoving, and punches being thrown. It was quite the ending of training camp for the Eagles.

Jason Kelce spoke after the abrupt end of practice, and took accountability for his actions and emphasized that he shouldn’t have reacted so quickly.

“I think tensions just got the better of me. Certainly, we try and keeps things civil on the field, and I think for me, I pride myself on being a guy that sustains the emotion and the level of play out there, and I let my emotions get the better of me.

That certainly doesn’t belong out there on the field, and a little bit of shame that it got to that level and that I did what I did. So, certainly not happy with that.

I think very highly of the guys that were out there, in particular, 44 is there. I think he’s a tremendous player, I think all of their guys up front [are], and they brought a lot of intensity to the day, which made the practice intense. I think I didn’t handle things properly there at the end.

Kelce said that he did not see Zaire Franklin after the teams left the field, and thought tensions are probably too high for that at the moment.

The Eagles’ center didn’t want to get into specifics about what happened leading up to the fight, but wanted to reiterate that he shouldn’t have done what he did, and something like that shouldn’t happen out there.

“It was a cheap shot.”

Kelce has been known to get emotional at practice, but he explained that there’s more time in practice to process things versus in games when you’re onto the next thing right away. Still, he thinks a certain level of intensity and fisticuffs at practice is okay, but what happened on Tuesday was not okay.

“I love Kenny [Gainwell]. I love all of my teammates, but I think that you can’t just brush something off. Everybody’s out here to be accountable and to get better, and that was unacceptable for me.”

Boston Scott was also asked about the situation and said that both teams pride themselves on being physical and sometimes things like that happen. He acknowledged that Kelce coming in like that could help build connection, but they are by no means looks to fight anybody or brawl in the name of connecting. Scott said he loves his guys and left it at that.

Jalen Hurts said that you want a team that sticks up for each other, but he just wanted to finish practice.