Is there room for Jason Kelce on Eagles' Mt. Rushmore?

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are the four Presidents sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved into the face of Mount Rushmore in western South Dakota in the 1930s.

But what about the 5^th-best President? Sorry, FDR. Sorry, Eisenhower. Sorry, James K. Polk. There’s just no room for you up there on the side of the mountain.

That’s what makes putting together Mt. Rushmores so challenging and so much fun. 

You only get four spots. No alternates. No ties. No honorable mention.

Just four.

Which brings us to the Eagles.

With Jason Kelce announcing his retirement Monday, it got us thinking about the Eagles’ Mt. Rushmore.

Who belongs? Who doesn’t belong? If Kelce goes on, who gets knocked off?

Difficult questions, but I set out to find an answer.

First, to narrow down the field, I devised a point system where I assigned two points for every 1^st-team all-pro honor and one point for each Pro Bowl. Then I made a list of the top 25 retired point scorers (not including guys like Keith Jackson and Bob Brown, who were only here for three or four years).

Offense: Harold Carmichael, Randall Cunningham, DeSean Jackson, Jason Kelce, Tommy McDonald, LeSean McCoy, Donovan McNabb, Jason Peters, Pete Pihos, Mike Quick, Pete Retzlaff, Tra Thomas, Steve Van Buren, Al Wistert.

Defense: Eric Allen, Chuck Bednarik, Bill Bergey, Bill Bradley, Brian Dawkins, Malcolm Jenkins, Seth Joyner, Jeremiah Trotter, Troy Vincent and Reggie White.

Special Teams: David Akers.

Next step was to study that list and then narrow it down to the 10-best Eagles of all-time.

I came up with: Bednarik, Cox, Dawkins, Kelce, Peters, Pihos, Quick, Van Buren, White and Wistert. You can make a case for a few other guys, but those are my 10.

And only four of them can make it up the mountain.

Who do we eliminate? 

Peters only made two all-pro teams and Cox one. Thanks to the Veterans Stadium turf, Quick only had five elite seasons. Wistert and Pihos had phenomenal careers – Pihos is a Hall of Famer and Wistert should be – but when I looked at everybody’s career achievements and accomplishments, five guys stood apart from the 1,811 other players in Eagles history.

Bednarik. Dawkins. Kelce. Van Buren. White.

Bednarik [1949-1962]: The first pick overall out of Penn, Bednarik spent his entire 14-year career with the Eagles, made all-pro six times (and 2^nd-team three times), starred on the 1949 and 1960 NFL Championship teams, played both ways at various points in his career – including 1960 at 35 years old - and was a 1^st-ballot Hall of Famer in 1967.

Dawkins [1996-2008]: A 2^nd-round pick out of Clemson, Dawk spent his first 13 years with the Eagles, racking up a franchise-record-tying 37 interceptions (and four more in the postseason), 26 sacks, 36 forced fumbles and 59 tackles for loss (even though they weren’t tracked his first three years). He made seven Pro Bowls as an Eagle (and one more in Denver) and was a 1^st-team all-pro four times between 2001 and 2006. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018 in his second year of eligibility.  

Kelce [2011-2023]: A 6^th-round pick out of Cincinnati, Kelce piled up seven Pro Bowls and six 1^st-team all-pros (all in his 30s) and became only the fourth player since 1960 to retire after making 1^st-team all-pro in each of his last three seasons. One of only five centers to make 1^st-team all-pro six times. And a starter on the 2017 Super Bowl championship team. With his athleticism, intelligence, leverage and power, he redefined the center position. 

Van Buren [1944-1951]: The fifth pick overall out of LSU, Van Buren made all-pro five times, led the league in rushing four times and scored 69 touchdowns in just 83 career games. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1965. He captained the 1948 and 1949 NFL Championship teams and rushed for 196 yards in the 1949 NFL title game win vs. the Rams, to this day the 3^rd-most in an NFL Championship Game or Super Bowl.

White [1984-1992]: Made six straight all-pro 1^st teams from 1986 through 1991, had 124 of his then-NFL-record 198 sacks with the Eagles, was NFL Defensive Player of the Year in the strike-shortened 1987 season (when he had 21 sacks in 12 games), made the Pro Bowl his last seven years here, led NFL in sacks twice, never missed a game because of injury in eight seasons with Eagles.

One’s gotta go.

But who?

Bednarik has to stay. He’s indisputable. He’s considered one of the greatest linebackers of all time, along with Lawrence Taylor, Dick Butkus, Ray Lewis and Jack Lambert.

White has to stay. He’s indisputable. He’s one of the two or three greatest defensive players ever, along with guys like L.T., Ronnie Lott and Deacon Jones.

That leaves Dawk, Kelce and Van Buren for two spots.

Bednarik was an Eagle for 14 years and a star for every one of them, Kelce and Dawk were here for 13 years and are among the best at their position in history. Reggie was only here eight years but in that span he established himself as one of the greatest defensive players ever. 

Now, Van Buren had an unbelievable stretch from 1945 through 1949, but his time as an elite player was relatively brief. He only had four seasons with more than 629 rushing yards, his last two seasons he was ineffective and his career rushing average of 4.4 ranked only seventh of 14 backs who had at least 500 carries during that eight-year span. He played fewer games in an Eagles uniform than Mychal Kendricks, L.J. Smith or Brandon Whiting and has a lower career rushing average than Miles Sanders, Correll Buckhalter or Ryan Mathews.

Van Buren is an all-time Eagles great. A Hall of Famer. One of the best to ever play the game.

But on the Eagles’ Mt. Rushmore, there’s only room for Concrete Charlie, B-Dawk, the Minister of Defense and Philly’s favorite Mummer-wearing, beer-guzzling, cheesesteak-eating, saxophone-playing, speech-writing 6^th-round legend.