Jason Kelce is still figuring out life on the side of the line of scrimmage. Retired after 13 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, the former center is now ESPN’s voice on Monday Night Countdown, trying to enjoy a job without pretending it will ever feel like running out of a tunnel with a Lombardi on the line. That tension – loving broadcasting, but knowing it’s not the same football he’s known all his life – is exactly where Tom Brady’s reality check hit him.

“For my first couple of years, I think I compared broadcasting so much to playing that it’s like an unfair comparison because I don’t think anything really lives up to playing in the NFL, especially at the height of what we achieved as teams,” Kelce said on the Ross Tucker Podcast. “Nothing’s really going to top that as far as a profession in my opinion, or at least I don’t know one yet. But that’s over, and that’s done.

“And I think Tom made this comment to me shortly after retiring, ‘Nothing’s gonna replace playing.’ And when you compare it to playing, yeah, I love playing more. But when you compare broadcasting to anything else I could be doing, it’s a pretty damn good job.”

Kelce’s second act came together very fast. Just a month after announcing his NFL retirement, he moved straight into ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown desk with Scott Van Pelt, Ryan Clark, and Marcus Spears. His New Heights podcast – launched in 2022 with his brother Travis – was already gaining momentum with weekly episodes. The future Hall of Famer has gone from seeing one game a week as a center to having to track the entire league for a live national pregame show and a podcast that lives in every corner of the NFL community.

Tom Brady’s post-playing life has exhibited that same drive, just with a different direction. He locked in a 10-year, $375M Fox contract to call games in 2022 – even as he unretired that same season to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers one last time. The next year, he went a step further by buying into the Las Vegas Raiders as a minority owner. Inside that building, reports suggest “he’s involved in everything,” from quarterback decisions to draft meetings. For Brady, staying near the game meant having a real seat at the table.

He’s even tried flag football. Brady suited up for the Fanatics Flag Football Classic, watched Team USA run his group off the field, then talked openly about how far NFL stars have to go if they want to chase gold when the sport hits the Olympics (LA28). He’s celebrated Fanatics’ push around the sport, owned the embarrassing loss, and hasn’t ruled out more appearances in the future.

As for Jason Kelce, Brady’s line has now become the way he keeps his new job in perspective. Nothing he does on TV or on a podcast is going to feel like calling protections in an NFC Championship, and he’s finally stopped grading broadcasting against that standard. When he says it’s “a pretty damn good job,” it’s the sound of a legend accepting that playing is gone, but staying in football still matters, even if you have to trade in your helmet for a headset.