Here’s the part of Travis Kelce his Kansas City Chiefs teammates say you don’t see
The Chiefs have made Tulane’s Yulman Stadium their home this week, and there’s some harmony to that, practicing on the campus where they won their first Super Bowl a half-century earlier.
A familiar setting for the organization.
And it offered a familiar scene for this year’s iteration: There came a point Wednesday when, same as every other Chiefs practice, the special teams took center stage on the field. The “teams” period, as they call it, doubles as a breather for the offense and defense.
But 50 yards away, as a member of the Chiefs’ front office retold it, stood Travis Kelce, a 35-year-old tight end who has shown just enough signs of aging that he’s been asked this week about whether he’s playing his final game. (He says he isn’t.)
Well, “stood” is the wrong word. Kelce, all by his lonesome away from the main field, sprinted through route after route — stop-start motions that require explosive movements off the line and at the top of the routes.
“It’s probably my favorite thing to watch,” said Mike Bradway, the Chiefs’ senior pro personnel director, who caught Kelce going through the exercise. “You can see that, in his head, he’s working through all his routes and preparing for every single scenario. It’s really fascinating.”
The argument for Travis Kelce as one of the premier tight ends in NFL history is a slam-dunk case that starts and ends with his on-field production. It encompasses all he does on game days.
This is about what he does every other day.
What he does when those on the outside aren’t watching — but when essential people on the inside are.
Five days before the Chiefs embarked on this year’s Super Bowl journey, second-year wide receiver Nikko Remigio turned on some film of the day’s practice and felt the need to hit pause before the first play had concluded. He remembered what happened next, and he wanted his wife to see it, too.
The clip featured Kelce catching a ball in practice before sprinting to the end zone afterward, even as no one chased from behind.
“It’s supposed to be a jog-through practice,” Remigio told his wife.
The legs don’t move as fast as they once did. The body doesn’t bend like it once did. The agility isn’t what it once was.
The spirit hasn’t changed.
The Chiefs beg Kelce to take fewer reps in practice, but he’s insistent that he needs them. It’s the best way, the only way, he insists, to prepare for Sunday. A week ago, as some of the Eagles’ veterans took a day or two off for rest, Kelce scoffed when someone suggested he ought to do the same.
“He wants to be in on every snap,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said. “We monitor that, but he wants to fight you when he has to come out.”
It’s one of the rare ways that getting old in professional sports has a larger impact. It’s contagious energy, so contagious, in fact, that it’s one of the reasons the Chiefs have grown comfortable filling their wide receiver room with younger players.
The front office knows rookies will see Kelce on the practice field, and if the 35-year-old tight end is practicing that hard, what excuse do you have to take a day off? Heck, even a play off.
“It’s amazing to see, man,” receiver Hollywood Brown said.
“That’s why he’s one of one,” receiver DeAndre Hopkins said.
“He’s 35?” rookie cornerback Chris Roland-Wallace asked, sounding genuinely surprised at this revelation.
“His position is so demanding in terms of physically — blocking, route-running. His position does everything,” passing game coordinator Joe Bleymaier said. “You can’t hide at practice in that spot. It will show up if you’re mailing one in, and he goes hard every play.”
Early in the season, Bleymaier drew up a new play. It featured Kelce as the primary option, running a route that he had run “a thousand times” in the past. But this had a slight formation tweak to deceive the defense.
The Chiefs ran it in practice during a walk-through, and the timing was off. The defense didn’t give them the right look. A week or so later, they tried again, and once more, Kelce was covered.
After the play, Kelce jogged toward Bleymaier.
“Joe, coach me up on that route. What am I doing wrong? What do you see?” he asked. “Help me run this route the way you guys are envisioning it. Coach me up.”
Thirty-five.
Coach me up.
Imagine the 21-year-old seeing that.
The Chiefs ask Kelce to know every route, because, well, they ask him to run every route — tight end routes and wide receiver routes. He lines up out wide or in the slot — away from the linemen, in other words — on 66% of his snaps, and that number has actually dipped.
It’s a lot to track. So this year, Kelce began acting as though he had forgotten his assignment. As he lined up, he’d turned to younger teammates — rookie receiver Xavier Worthy, Remigio, others — and ask for help.
What route do I have here? Do I have the shallow?
“He’s testing us,” Remigio said. “Just keeping us on our toes and making sure we’re on top of it.”
His timing? Right before the snap.
“The worst time,” Remigio said. “He knows what he’s doing, but it took me awhile to catch on. Like, why are you asking me? I should be asking you.”
That, all of it, comprises the cause.
The effect: A 35-year-old who remarked recently that he laughs when people say he’s washed just had the most catches in a season, ever, for a tight end his age.
Don’t misunderstand that. He’s lost a step, undoubtedly. His prowess after the catch was virtually non-existent in the regular season. He’s yards per reception dipped quite drastically.
But aren’t we moving to a similar conversation, though perhaps now more robust and evidenced, as a year ago?
You know, before he then responded with 32 catches for 355 yards and two touchdowns in four playoff games. In the Super Bowl last year, the Chiefs’ internal data clocked him as producing his fastest after-the-catch run of the year on his final catch of regulation — the play that set up a game-tying field goal.
They had to check it twice.
“I think the great ones know how to find it,” Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said. “They know where it’s buried, and they know how to access it.”
“I’ve never been around a player that has been this good at that age.”
Especially in the postseason. Kelce has more playoff catches (174) than anyone in NFL history. He’s second in playoff receiving yards.
Just last month, to open these playoffs, he had the most yards in a playoff game for any tight end age 32 or older. At age 35.
On a team that intentionally seeks to prioritize young players and use veterans as support, Kelce is the exception — even if in more recent years the exception appears a little less frequently.
Veach detailed it almost like trimesters. In the initial 4-6 weeks, he explained, Kelce “is joking around with the guys. Like Weeks 6-12, he’s kind of cranky.”
And playoff time?
“This mode right here,” Veach said. “(makes) the hairs on your arm stand up.”