In his first late night monologue, Jason Kelce explained that the name of his show, They Call It Late Night, is a nod to NFL Films’ first-ever documentary, They Call It Pro Football, which debuted 1966, featuring the iconic voice of John Facenda. The integration of footage from the legendary studio, who is one of the producers of Kelce’s show, is one of the things that makes it unique in the late-night landscape. The other is Kelce himself, who has proven to be an entertaining everyman with the podcast he hosts with his brother Travis, as well as other media appearances. But, as the first episode of the series shows, there is also a reason why the former Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman wanted the series to be shot in his adopted hometown.

Opening Shot: A lit up cart shaped like an Eagles helmet rolls up to Lincoln Financial Field. Jason Kelce, dressed up in the Mummers costume he wore to the team’s victory parade after they won the Super Bowl in 2018, walks up to the outside wall of the stadium.

The Gist: In that pre-recorded sketch, Kelce tells the stadium that he’s nervous about hosting his own late night show, and that he’s had such good days there, that the stadium will be able to reassure him. The stadium does, then Kelce gives it a hug. He then drives the helmet cart past just about every Philadelphia landmark you can think of, pausing to fill the tank at the same time as Gritty, the popular Flyers mascot. He then arrives at Union Transfer, the live music venue where They Call It Late Night With Jason Kelce takes place.

The show is very Philly-centric, with an audience full of mostly Eagles fans. But it’s also a family affair; Kelce’s wife Kylie is the announcer and his parents, Donna and Ed are in the audience. The house band is a local party band called Snacktime, all of whom are donning Allen Iverson-era Sixers jerseys with the band name on them.

Kelce talks about how much he loved late night talk shows — he was a fan of Conan O’Brien — and how he went from being one of the best offensive lineman in Eagles history to standing on that stage. He shows the audience a “portal” he uses to talk to other late night hosts; in this case, it’s fellow Disney employee Jimmy Kimmel. He fends off some heckling from an “audience member” who is wolfing down a hoagie, and also talks to his 14-year-old self, who is more impressed by the Super Bowl win than the talk show (and is bummed that his younger brother Travis has won 3 of them). His older self also comes out and talks about a “shortening” procedure that makes no sense.

Then Kelce gets down to sports talk, with his guests being Charles Barkley, former NFL o-linemen and now TV analyst Brian Baldinger, and Dave Burd, aka Lil Dicky. It was an NFL-centric conversation, of course, with Eagles RB Saquon Barkley sitting in Week 18 instead of going for Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record a big topic. The Lions and their coach Dan Campbell were also brought up.

In a different segment, Kelce and his guests read funny narrative copy over NFL Films game footage (NFL Films is one of the show’s producers). Then, in the final segment, Kelce holds a beer chugging contest, with four of the best chuggers in NFL fandom competing to see who can quaff a brew the fastest.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? They Call It Late Night With Jason Kelce is a bit of a combination of a traditional late night show and a sports-talk panel show along the lines of First Take or The Pat McAfee Show.

Our Take: We’re nominally Giants fans — though with how bad that team has been in the past decade, our fandom is waning — so seeing such a heavily Philly-centric vibe on They Call It Late Night With Jason Kelce was a bit nauseating. But looking at it from an objective standpoint, seeing the Eagles’ passionate fans get their chance to cheer on one of their heroes on a late night show is different enough to give the show a refreshing vibe.

Anyone who’s heard New Heights, the podcast Jason and Travis Kelce do together knows that Jason Kelce is a personable guy, and definitely an “of the people” type. So having him wear his high school varsity jacket and just riff with fans is where he shines. Segments where he gets tailgating fans to do famous NFL Films’ background music show how much of a regular guy he is.

That being said, Kelce needs to be given some sharper lines to give in his monologue, as it felt like it was all over the place. And the sketch-like ideas, like the hoagie-eating audience member and the older version of Jason that got “shortening” surgery didn’t land at all. Also, this feels like it would be a good place for Jason and his wife Kylie to interact more.

The two football talk segments completely brought whatever entertainment momentum the show had to a complete stop. Yes, this is an ESPN show, and having Charles Barkley on any panel is going to make it automatically more entertaining. But sports talk is sports talk, and the panel struck way too serious a tone — even Lil Dicky was trying to give analysis.

Things picked up with the NFL Films narration bit, even though the copy all of them read wouldn’t have been in an NFL Films doc in a million years. And the chugging contest was also fun to watch.

Sex and Skin: None, though there is a fair amount of salty language. The only words bleeped out are f-bombs.

Parting Shot: The winner of the chugging contest gets two Super Bowl tickets, which Kelce calls a “gift” instead of a prize.

Sleeper Star: Kylie Kelce has a surprisingly smooth announcer voice. Like we mentioned above, more interaction between the Kelces would be fun to watch.

Most Pilot-y Line: You have Lil Dicky on your show and you don’t ask him to do a funny rap?

Our Call: STREAM IT. They Call It Late Night With Jason Kelce had a bit of a rough start. What we hope is that Kelce and the show’s producers and writers take this first episode and tweak things so the show is geared more towards comedy — even football-related comedy — and less towards relatively dry sports talk.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.