One of Jason Kelce’s former teaMMAtes is coming to his defense after Kelce was involved in a viral incident involving a brazen heckler.
Chris Long, who played with Kelce, 37, for two seasons on the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017 and 2018, addressed the controversial Saturday, November 2 confrontation, during which Kelce swatted the phone out of the hand of a young man who used a homophobic slur to describe Kelce’s brother, Travis Kelce, and his relationship with girlfriend Taylor Swift.
“I feel for my guy,” Long, 39, said Tuesday, November 5, on the “This Is Football” podcast. “I saw this coming. When he took all these jobs, he’s already so famous, but now he’s, like, a different kind of famous. I think the biggest problem with today’s generation of kids — I hate to say it like that, I sound like an old man — but I think everything is about clout now in the world. Like, period.”
In a separate video released by TMZ after the incident, Kelce — who started working for ESPN in September — was also seen repeating the same homophobic slur three times in rebuttal. Kelce later apologized and addressed the incident on both ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown and his “New Heights” podcast.
Long argued the heckler, who approached Kelce on the campus of Penn State University after the former Eagles star appeared on ESPN’s College GameDay, was looking for “the quickest way that I can get my five minutes of fame.”
“Everybody hates him, which is really hard to do right now,” Long joked.
On the topic of clout chasing, Long argued young people today sometimes incite violence for the purpose of social media engagement.
“Nowadays, a kid that gets smacked in the face might say, ‘Hey, look what I got! I got smacked in the face by Jason Kelce,’” he said.
Long added, “It’s like Internet trolls in person.”
After the incident, an investigation was opened into the matter by Penn State University Police.
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“It could have been a lot worse for that guy if there weren’t a million people around, and Jason wasn’t so damn patient,” Long continued. “I don’t think it’s just pro athletes. I think people have no respect anymore for each other, and the Internet culture has ruined real life.”
He added, “There’s too many people who grew up in situations where they never got punched in the face. I’m not saying that’s a prerequisite to being an adult, but I’m pretty sure that guy never got punched in the face.”
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