Travis Kelce ran wrong route on his diving catch. Why it worked for Chiefs anyway
The freeze-frame of the play is perfect — from knee to chest, Travis Kelce is pressed up against the grass inside M&T Stadium in Baltimore. The momentum of a dive that placed him there would next jam his shoulder into the ground, and then his back, left foot and elbow.
Which meant that just about the only thing that somehow, someway never made contact with the ground was, well, the football.
In a Chiefs’ 17-10 win over the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game, Kelce set an all-time record for playoff receptions. Not a franchise record. Not a record for a tight end. It’s the most postseason catches across the entire NFL, any position.
He has 156 of them. But the very best, the top of the list of 156, might be the one that led this column — even if not his most impactful, his most impressive. So impressive, in fact, that Andy Reid remarked, “I’ve seen him do a lot of things. I really haven’t seen that right there.”
That’s compelling.
The multiplier? Kelce ran the wrong route on the play.
Initially.
On the broadcast, you can hear quarterback Patrick Mahomes change the play with an audible at the line of scrimmage, shouting, “Alert! Alert!” Yes, Mahomes has done that before in an attempt to fool a defense into thinking an audible is coming. But in this case, one was.
That was the intention anyway. Kelce didn’t quite abide by the change. On his New Heights podcast Wednesday, he confirmed, “I was like, ‘I don’t know if we should change this play.’” But then Kelce added, “That’s not how you play football, ladies and gentlemen. You have to listen to the guy. He’s got the keys to the car. He’s steering the ship.”
The third-down audible instructed Kelce to run a deeper “over” route across the middle — which the Chiefs ran with success earlier in these playoffs, Rashee Rice beating the Dolphins with it not once but twice. But Kelce, lined up in the left slot, instead settled on a hitch route just past the sticks — the route he was supposed to run before the audible.
Mahomes actually looked over the middle of the field for the route Kelce was supposed to run after the audible — the intermediate over route — only to see Richie James covered on the shallow drag, no one occupying the space behind him. Funny thing, looking back now, is Mahomes had other options — Clyde Edwards-Helaire had some space on the sideline, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling eventually got separation deep in the end zone.
But with the initial read broken, Mahomes was already in scramble mode by then, looking to buy more time. He bought 9.78 seconds in all, per Next Gen Stats, just enough time for Kelce to work his way to the middle of the field.
You know, as the initial route intended.
A full-extension dive gained the first down. The Chiefs would score five plays later to take a lead they’d never relinquish.
“Of course Travis ran the wrong route — and he ended up getting the football,” Mahomes said after the game, with a smile, in response to a question from The Star’s Vahe Gregorian. “But, no, the offensive line did a great job protecting. I was trying to find a way to run, but they were doing a good job containing me with the (defensive) line. And then Travis worked his way to get open. When he’s one on one, I give him a chance. I threw the ball, and he made a heck of a catch.”
The play started with a mistake.
It concluded with a highlight catch — but also with indication of why Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce are the most productive postseason duo in NFL history. How does a broken play still become a successful play? Mahomes and Kelce excel when it all breaks down — in this case, even if one of them is responsible for why it all breaks down.
This season alone, a relative down year for both (emphasis on relative), they still combined for 17 catches on plays in which Mahomes held the ball for at least four seconds, most in the NFL, per Next Gen Stats. In other words, on scramble-drill plays.
But this represented new territory. They somehow still landed on the same page when they didn’t even start on the same page.
“It makes playing with the guy so much (bleeping) fun,” Kelce said on his podcast. “When you just know that he could pull a rabbit out of the hat at any point, put the ball in one area for you to go and get, where you or nobody gets it — and you can go and try to make that spectacular play for your team.
“Because you know the play is never over, and even when they think they got you, they don’t.”
That, most notably, is the at the crux of the Kelce-Mahomes relationship — their identical recognition of what to do when the original route just plain doesn’t work. Then what?
“They’re able to create their own routes, so it’s almost impossible to defend,” Chiefs safety Justin Reid, once an opponent, said last week.
The Chiefs have actually struggled with the scramble drill in comparison to years past. These are imperfect measurements for that, but they’re telling nonetheless: Mahomes totaled his lowest expected points added (EPA) on plays when he throws on the move, other than 2019, per Sports Info Solutions. It has been a sign of trouble this season when he holds onto the ball — his passer rating when allotted 2.5 seconds or more in the pocket was 82.9 during the regular season, per PFF. It was at 100.4 last season under the same circumstances.
That operation with Kelce, however, hasn’t changed — particularly in the postseason. He caught all 11 targets Sunday in the AFC Championship. It’s not the first time he’s had a perfect target-to-reception ratio, but it is the first time it’s included 11 receptions.
It’s notable that it comes now. Kelce has looked fresher into the postseason — and felt it too, based on his own description — after electing to sit out the regular season finale rather than chase the 1,000-yard milestone. His body, he said, has responded better to the playoff games after a bye, of sorts.
His numbers in the three games preceding the playoffs: 13 catches, 88 yards, 0 touchdowns.
His numbers in the three postseason games since giving himself a week off: 23 catches, 262 yards and three touchdowns.
That’s not a coincidence. He will play for his third Super Bowl ring in Las Vegas. He’s one of just three players slated to start in four of the past five Super Bowls on offense or defense.
But up first?
A week off.
This story was originally published February 1, 2024 at 6:00 AM.