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Philadelphia Eagles: Reactions to Brent Celek’s retirement

By Geoffrey Knox

PHILADELPHIA, PA - DECEMBER 26: Brent Celek #87 of the Philadelphia Eagles warms up before a football game against the Washington Redskins at Lincoln Financial Field on December 26, 2015 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Rich Schultz /Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - DECEMBER 26: Brent Celek #87 of the Philadelphia Eagles warms up before a football game against the Washington Redskins at Lincoln Financial Field on December 26, 2015 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Rich Schultz /Getty Images) /
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Fans, teammates and the Philadelphia Eagles organization spent Friday celebrating the longest-tenured tight end in team history. August 31st is, officially, Brent Celek day.

For eleven seasons, all of them in Philadelphia Eagles green, Brent Celek gave his team’s fans and coaches reason after reason to fall in love with him. Eleven seasons translates into 175 games played, making him second to only Brian Dawkins and Harold Carmichael in that category.

It also means he went to being one of the focal points of the team’s offense to being an elder statesman and a mentor to the likes of some of the young guys, Zach Ertz for instance.

Celek shared the field and Philly’s locker room with a ton of teammates, and on the final day of August, just one day after Philly’s final preseason game (10-9 victory over the New York Jets), the Eagles and the organization that made him the 162nd-overall selection of the 2007 NFL Draft took some time to reminisce and say thank you.

Take a look at some of the highlights:

https://twitter.com/Eagles/status/1035538015106605056

Reuben Frank’s tweet comes courtesy of a farewell letter written by ‘Number 87’ himself that was published on Philly’s official website. Take a moment to read that one when you can.

Here are more highlights of the outpouring of respect that Celek received via social media on Friday:

https://twitter.com/SportsRadioWIP/status/1035542536444674048

We’d like to thank #87 as well.

We, at ITI would like to thank Celek for making being an Eagles fan easy. Guys like ‘Number 87’ remind us why we cheer for this team, and we say thank you for every catch, effort and yard.

Count them. That’s 398 receptions. 4,998 yards and 31 touchdowns from the tight end position. No other man on the planet can say they’ve caught touchdown passes from Donovan McNabb, Kevin Kolb, Michael Vick, Sam Bradford, Nick Foles, and Carson Wentz.

To be honest, there are quite a few wide receivers who would have killed for those numbers and that type of career.

Well done Mr. Celek. Thank you for all that you’ve given your team and fan base.Good luck in all of your future endeavors.

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