I hate to ask such a depressing question but the more I think about Kelce’s retirement the more I think about what it would mean for Jalen as well but then I also think about how important Lane is as well.
Most of us feel like Kelce’s retirement is on the way soon, but let’s play Devil’s Advocate for a second and pretend neither of them were going to retire yet.
If one of them were to leave, which one would be the bigger loss for the team?
Kelce imo. Centers control the whole line. He has authority to change whatever he sees at the line. That takes years and years of experience and some still dont do it as well as Kelce. You can easily make the case that Kelce is the #1 center of all time.
Losing Lane will suck but at least he’s not blindside
Yeah this is what I think a lot of people forget when they say that Lane is the better overall player. He is, but Kelce has so much control over the way the offense is run and the protection is set that it’s super concerning wondering what we’ll look like when he’s gone. It has the potential to completely change how good our OL is overall - not to mention one of the reasons Lane is so good is because he has Kelce’s cadence down to the millisecond so he can jump the snap without getting a penalty. His production might actually be worse with a new center too. Basically, Lane is the better player, but Kelce is the more important one IMO.
I remember the last time Kelce actually missed a game our line suffered greatly because they had to run whatever protection was called in the huddle. His back up didn’t have the IQ to change protection schemes based on that the D lined up in.
Yeah, a lot of people just completely miss this when talking about how important Kelce is vs. Lane. He’s arguably the smartest player on the field on any given snap, and his intelligence is one of the reasons that our entire OL always looks so good. Not taking anything away from Lane, he’s a true shutdown tackle, which is as rare as a true shutdown CB these days, but without Kelce shifting protections at the line and giving him the opportunity to get his initial kick-step so perfectly timed to the snap, he likely wouldn’t be as dominant.