KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Travis Kelce ended the 2024 NFL season with profession lows in yards and touchdowns — 823 and three, respectively. He seemed like he is perhaps nearing the top of one of many best tight finish careers in NFL historical past. At 35 years previous, a sophisticated age for his place, he typically seemed common on the sphere — apart from a classic Kelce stretch of video games in the course of the center of the season.
Then he caught seven passes for 117 yards and a landing within the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs’ divisional playoff win over the Houston Texans, single-handedly dragging an in any other case torpid passing recreation into the AFC Championship Sport.
“We have all seen it over the previous few years,” common supervisor Brett Veach mentioned. “There are intervals all through the season the place you are like, ‘This is perhaps it.’ However when the video games are an important and the lights are the brightest, he finds it someplace.”
With Kelce turning 36 in October, the Chiefs anticipate that in 2025 he’ll nonetheless be the participant they know nicely.
“The nice ones know the right way to discover it,” Veach mentioned. “They know the place it is buried, and so they know the right way to entry it. They usually cannot entry it at that age week in and week out, however once they want it, they know the right way to discover it.”
Nonetheless, the Chiefs try to steer themselves away from needing Kelce the way in which they’ve in current seasons by planning to shift among the receiving burden to others.
At broad receiver, they need to see the return of Rashee Rice, who was main the league in receptions via three video games final 12 months earlier than a Week 4 knee harm ended his season. In addition they re-signed Hollywood Brown and expect a bounce in manufacturing from Xavier Worthy, who caught 59 passes as a rookie final season. At tight finish, the Chiefs even have Noah Grey, who final season set profession highs in catches (40), yards (437) and touchdowns (5).
That does not imply the expectations are minimal for Kelce, who might be taking part in below the ultimate 12 months of a two-year, $34.25 million contract extension he signed final 12 months.
“I anticipate Travis to be Travis,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes mentioned. “Clearly, the play on the sphere’s going to be excessive. He will go on the market with the mentality that we’re making an attempt to win the Tremendous Bowl this 12 months with us falling brief this final 12 months. Then, I believe greater than something, it is the management that he brings to the constructing each single day. How he leads by instance and the way he leads vocally, it is a huge impact on our soccer group, so I anticipate him to play at a excessive degree after which be an excellent higher chief.
“From what I’ve seen … he is able to go. He is been placing within the work this offseason, and he is excited for an additional probability to make a run at it.”
Kelce has at all times performed a excessive share of the snaps for the Chiefs, and final 12 months was no completely different. Actually, he performed extra snaps (950) and was within the lineup for a better share of the Chiefs’ offensive performs (81.8%) than in any season since 2019.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid indicated he is unlikely to alter plans for Kelce, saying he is “probably not feeling” the necessity to reduce on Kelce’s taking part in time.
“It’s going to be much like final 12 months,” Reid mentioned. “… He is in nice form proper now, so I believe he is trying ahead to getting going.
“I at all times watch him. I at all times keep watch over him. I do know he is getting older. He would not know he is getting older, however I do. I could be the unhealthy man in some instances there, if wanted. If I believe it is catching as much as him just a little bit, I am going to pull off and put him the place he must be. Apart from that, he hasn’t confirmed me any of that but. He is completed rather well with it.”
Kelce took a while after the Chiefs’ Tremendous Bowl LIX loss to the Philadelphia Eagles to resolve whether or not he wished to play one other season, his twelfth within the NFL. However he made his resolution in comparatively brief order and mentioned it wasn’t a tough alternative and that he had extra good soccer in him.
He indicated he wished to place himself via what he known as a extra rigorous offseason exercise schedule than final 12 months.
“That call for me must be made again in March or early April,” Kelce mentioned. “You set the tone and put a routine collectively that will get your mindset and will get your physique [right] and actually from there you can begin to tweak your talent set. So it is simply all the things concerned. It’s important to evolve each single 12 months in all phases of the sport. So that you already know that began again in March and to this point we’re on observe.”
Even when his different numbers weren’t as much as Kelce’s commonplace final 12 months, he nonetheless caught 97 passes, tied for the fourth-highest whole of his profession. He nonetheless ranked fifth in yardage amongst tight ends, behind Brock Bowers, Trey McBride, George Kittle and Jonnu Smith. However that occurred throughout a season when Rice and Brown performed in solely a small fraction of the video games.
In the event that they keep wholesome, together with Worthy and Grey, Kelce’s streak of main the Chiefs in catches and yards will doubtless come to an finish at three. That would not essentially imply the Chiefs have a look at his season as a disappointment.
“His numbers will not be the identical,” Veach mentioned. “It’s important to acknowledge … that he is older. He isn’t 28 years previous. However all the things runs extra effectively when that man is on the market. He is nonetheless going to demand the eye or at the least the occasional eyes of major defenders simply due to his title and his legacy.
“Having Travis on the sphere makes us higher. I do not know if I have a look at it by way of expectations for yardage or touchdowns or catches. When he is on the sphere, he makes us higher. He is additionally a man who makes the folks round him higher.”