Jason Kelce proved the bad blood between Philadelphia and Dallas is still going strong.
ESPN’s broadcast of the Monday, December 9 game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys featured a Simpsons-themed simulcast. During a crossover between the two broadcasts, reporter Mina Kimes called fictional town Springfield “the armpit of America’s buttcrack.”
When Monday Night Countdown host Scott Van Pelt welcomed viewers back to the regular broadcast, he made sure to explain they were back in “Dallas.”
“Also the butthole and armpit of America,” Kelce, 37, said.
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The comment earned a huge reaction from Van Pelt, 58, and cohosts Marcus Spears and Ryan Clark. “Whoa, whoa whoa,” Van Pelt responded.
“I was joking,” Kelce said. “It was a joke. It was a joke! It was just a joke because of what Mina said.”
Spears, 41, who played eight seasons for the Cowboys from 2005 to 2012, wasn’t letting Kelce, who played all 13 of his NFL seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, off the hook.
“Welp! Time to go,” Spears said as he adjusted his collar from the TV set on the sidelines of Arlington, Texas’ AT&T Stadium.
Kelce continued to plead his case, saying, “We’re having fun here! I love Dallas!”
Spears wasn’t the only person who took issue with Kelce’s comments, as Cowboys fans also took to social media to vent their anger at the former Eagles star.
“i’m annoyed bc i actually liked jason kelce until this moment. bc dude wtf?,” one viewer wrote via X. “you may have beef w the cowboys but that doesn’t make dallas a sh–hole.”
The hatred between Kelce and the Cowboys — who have been bitter division rivals with the Eagles since 1961 — has been long-simmering.
Earlier this year, Kelce showed off a bumper sticker of an Eagles fan peeing on the Cowboys logo that he had slapped onto his Tesla Cybertruck.
While Cowboys fans stew in their contempt over what Kelce said on Monday night, the “New Heights” host received some good news of his own on Tuesday morning.
A spokeswoman for Penn State University announced a police investigation involving Kelce’s behavior on the school’s campus last month had been closed.
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“The individual in the video footage circulating on social media has not been identified,” the spokeswoman told TMZ Sports on Tuesday, December 10, “and no one has come forward to University Police with a related complaint about damage to personal property.”
Kelce had been under investigation for smashing the phone out of a heckler’s fan before the Penn State-Ohio State football game on Saturday, November 2.
A young man approached Kelce, hurling a homophobic slur about Kelce’s brother, Travis Kelce, and his relationship with girlfriend Taylor Swift. In response, Kelce slapped the heckler’s phone to the ground before repeating the homophobic slur three times himself.
“I’m not happy with anything that took place. I’m not proud of it,” Kelce said on the November 4 episode of Monday Night Countdown. “Within a heated moment, I chose to greet hate with hate and I don’t think that’s a productive thing. I don’t think it leads to discourse.”
