Chiefs sign tight end Travis Kelce to five-year contract extension worth $46 million

About a week before he signed his five-year, $46 million contract extension Friday, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce stood in a room full of students at Turner High School and spoke about how much he loved Kansas City.

Kelce was there to promote a new video game that promotes financial education — good timing, it turns out — and after speaking to the students and giddily playing the game with them, he turned his attention to his own future.

“KC knows I want to be here,” Kelce said. “They do know that I’m very comfortable here, I love the coaching staff, I love the players, I love the city, the community.

“I’ve embraced it and I told everybody it’s my home away from home. I’m in this city, and if the money is right, I’d love to absolutely stay here.”

Kelce said those words Jan. 19, and it took the Chiefs fewer than two weeks to make that dream come true as Kelce signed a contract extension that makes him the NFL’s second-highest paid player at his position.

Terms of the deal, which the Chiefs announced Friday via Twitter with a photo of Kelce putting pen to paper along the Hawaiian coastline, were not disclosed by the team. But sources familiar with the agreement told The Star that Kelce’s contract was for five years and $46 million, including $20.02 million in guaranteed money. The maximum value of the contract could reach $50 million.

After drawn-out negotiations with outside linebacker Justin Houston that resulted in a $100 million contract after his 22-sack year, the Chiefs aggressively sought to keep Kelce — one of the best young tight ends in the league — from hitting the market as a unrestricted free agent in 2017.

“I’m ecstatic, I’m ecstatic,” Kelce said Friday during a phone call with reporters. “Like I said, I can’t be more thankful, more happy of the situation that I’m in right now. I love Kansas City to death … it’s a blue-collar city, just like I grew up in. I can’t be thankful enough for how they embraced me as a player.”

It was the latest, and greatest, development in what has been an amazing week for Kelce. Not only is he enjoying his time in Hawaii as a first-time Pro Bowler, he’s also starring in his own cable dating show, which was announced on Thursday. He also was chosen as role model of the year for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City.

“Other than that, I got to hug my mother today,” Kelce said. “so I guess things are getting better and better.”

The Chiefs’ decision to lock up Kelce has a lot to do with his swift progression since he was taken in the third round of the 2013 NFL Draft.

“I think he’s matured very nicely,” Chiefs general manager John Dorsey said from the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. “I think he’s everything we expected. He’s matured as a person. He has grown as a professional.

“He wants to be really good and he displayed this year he’s pretty dang good, and he can get better.”

Kelce has been one of the Chiefs’ primary receiving targets for the last two seasons. He caught 72 passes for 875 yards and five touchdowns this season, and helped the Chiefs win a playoff game for the first time in 22 years. Kelce, who missed almost all of his rookie season because of a knee injury, has appeared in 33 games, compiling 1,737 yards and 10 touchdowns in 139 catches.

And now, he’ll make an average of $9.2 million per season, which trails only Seattle’s Jimmy Graham, who got a four-year, $40 million contract before 2014, at his position. New England tight end Rob Gronkowski signed a six-year, $54 million deal before the 2014 season, an average of $9 million per year.

During his conference call Friday, Kelce expressed appreciation for chairman Clark Hunt, coach Andy Reid, the entire coaching staff and Dorsey.

“These guys believed in me enough when I got drafted and obviously still are behind me every step of the way,” Kelce said. “I can’t thank them enough.”

Kelce, who is represented by Michael Simon, Greg Diulus and Adam Heller, assured fans than the new deal won’t make him any less driven to succeed.

“With all of this comes a lot of responsibility and right now, I’m more motivated than ever to go out there and be a dominant performer on the field for the Chiefs for many years to come,” Kelce said.

Kelce said Reid reminded him about the importance of taking care of business after signing the deal.

“He’s going to stay on top of you,” Kelce said. “He said congrats, but obviously with that comes more responsibility. You just keep moving forward and keep getting better.”

Kelce was not interested in discussing his new reality show, which will be called “Catching Kelce” and appear on the E! network. But his manager, Aaron Eanes, told The Star that the show will be filmed in March and won’t conflict with Kelce’s football-related activities. Eanes also said that Kelce required that the show be shot around his training schedule.

“To be honest, right now I’m trying to stay focused on signing and keeping everything going in Kansas City,” Kelce said. “I’d rather not get into the whole TV show, I’m going to kind of let that play out and let it be what it is.

“I’m just happy right now to be out here with my family and my friends and some of my teammates and coaches to celebrate a moment like this.”

It was exactly the kind of moment Kelce could only dream of a few weeks ago, when he was speaking to the kids at Turner about the importance of financial literacy.

“It went fantastic,” Turner principal Alan Penrose said of the event. “If we could do this every day with different businesses, kids would be lining up at the door.”

Kelce spoke candidly about the importance of managing his money, even talking about a college cable bill he failed to pay that adversely affected his credit.

Now, with more money in his pocket than he’s ever had, he’ll be able to back up those cautionary words with his actions, too.

“I like to get into the community with things like this and be able to react, whether it’s high school kids or the KC faithful down at a radio show,” Kelce said at the time. “I’ve really made this place home.”

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 12:15 PM with the headline "Chiefs sign tight end Travis Kelce to five-year contract extension worth $46 million."