On the evolution of Travis Kelce from brash wild-card to a pillar of the KC Chiefs
Before that roughing the passer fiasco Monday night at Arrowhead Stadium, the last time the Chiefs were fuming at referee Carl Cheffers was five-plus years ago.
That was January 2017, when his holding call on Eric Fisher negated a game-tying two-point conversion late in an 18-16 loss to Pittsburgh in a divisional round playoff game … and evoked the postgame fury of the unbridled Travis Kelce after a game in which he’d also committed a personal foul.
If that sounds like ancient history, we turn back to it now as a benchmark.
Because the contrast between that scene and who Kelce has become today, who he was at the scene on Monday, tells a broader story.
It illustrates the arc of his evolution from a tendency toward brash sideshows into one of the most compelling athletes and characters in Kansas City sports history — and a force who is on trajectory to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He’ll be in the spotlight again on Sunday when Buffalo comes to Kansas City hoping to stifle a player who has had 32 receptions for 336 yards and six touchdowns in their last four meetings.
By now, maybe you take those kinds of performances for granted from Kelce. But take a moment to appreciate it.
Not just because of the phenomenon Kelce has become.
Because something had to change for him to realize this sort of potential.
By taming his temperamental trap doors, Kelce went from being a wild card to the most dynamic and dependable player the Chiefs have after Patrick Mahomes. It’s telling that Mahomes trusts Kelce so deeply.
“How they play off each other, I think, is big,” coach Andy Reid said. “That doesn’t always happen in this league, where you find a guy that you have that mojo with there — or whatever you want to term it.”
By growing up and learning to embrace the habits he’d need to be the leader he yearned to be, Kelce became a role model who makes others around him better.
Someone who means it, you can tell from teammates, when he says things like he tries “to never let a day slip by that you’re not working your tail off for the guys around you.”
“That’s why he’s kind of taken it to the next level,” Mahomes said. “Because everybody on that field, they enjoy watching him succeed because of the type of guy he is every day.”
To be sure, Kelce, 33, has long since matured on the field, mirroring the man he’s become off it:
Two years ago, he was the Chiefs’ nominee for Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year because of his dedication to his Eighty-Seven & Running foundation and support of Operation Breakthrough.
Mary Esselman, president and CEO of Operation Breakthrough, brought those worlds together eloquently in an email she sent after I interviewed her about Kelce in 2020.
“Early in his career Travis had trouble controlling his emotions on the field,” she wrote. “Years ago, I used to wince a bit during the games. But seeing his growth has been a real learning experience for our children. We spend a lot of time at OB working with children on managing their behaviors and emotions.
“Sharing Travis’ journey can be a great opportunity for our school-age children to see that getting control of our emotions is something we all work on through life.”
His four-touchdown game against the Raiders on Monday was yet another exclamation point on what that growth has enabled for Kelce, who has the fifth-most receiving yards (9,353) among tight ends in NFL history.
You could see it in how he solved, even relished, the Raiders regularly mugging him at the line of scrimmage (and beyond). And once again in how he connected in ways about no one else could with Mahomes, his psychic sidekick.
The best explanation of that virtual mind-meld will always be that mic’d up bit between them on the sideline during the AFC Divisional playoff comeback over Houston on the way to winning Super Bowl LIV.
(After an awed Kelce said, “I don’t understand how you know what I’m doing,” Mahomes told him, “I knew you were going to turn.” Then Kelce laughed and said, “There is nothing telling you I was going to do that, and the ball was in the air before I did it.” To which Mahomes simply said, “That’s what I wanted you to do.”)
But fellow tight end Jody Fortson summed it up deftly: Beyond Kelce’s rare fusion of size and speed and ever-swiveling hips, Fortson said, he “has a master’s degree in finding space. And I think Patrick also shares the same degree: master of finding space.
“And when you have two people who are on the same wavelength, the same frequency … in real time at the same time, I believe that’s a deadly combination.”
Especially because, as Kelce demonstrated again on Monday, he is more free to soar because he’s learned to navigate the line between playing with passion and being reckless.
A line that once seemed so complicated for him.
To reset:
After that game against Pittsburgh in 2017, you may recall, Kelce said Cheffers “shouldn’t even be able to wear a zebra jersey ever again. He shouldn’t even be able to work in a (darned) Foot Locker.”
Amusing as his words were, they also spoke to the volatility that seemed wrapped around Kelce — who in that very game also incurred an unnecessary roughness penalty. He was soon fined $12,500 for what the league defined as a “a personal attack on an individual game official” and $9,115 for his shove of Steelers cornerback Ross Cockrell.
At the time, those were just the most recent displays of how his intensity could consume him.
Like it did against Jacksonville in 2016, when he threw his towel toward an official to mock a perceived non-call, resulting in an ejection for his second unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty of the game and a $24,309 fine. Or like when he criticized coach Andy Reid’s playcalling a few weeks later following a loss to Tennessee.
To say nothing of a handful of other episodes that were distracting from, perhaps even detracting from, his spectacular talent.
If other teams could only hope to contain Kelce, the same often could be said for the Chiefs themselves.
“Kind of a wild pony” was how he was seen for several years by Reid, who at times was visibly exasperated by Kelce as he sought to harness and refine that energy.
“He came here, he was a little bit wild. But it was always in a fun, good way,” Reid said earlier this week.
Then he paused before adding, “Sometimes.”
About as soon as the laughter in the room died down, though, Reid added, Kelce has “done well growing up … over the last I don’t know how many years.”
True to that (or “sure enough,” as Kelce likes to say), what might once have set off Kelce galvanized him on Monday.
Like a 17-0 deficit, that brutal call on Chris Jones, grappling for space on about every play, etc.
Instead …
“All it did was just almost build the beast,” Kelce said.
He was speaking about the team, but it could just as well have been about himself.
What might have been frustration was motivation on a night he matched the franchise record for most receiving touchdowns in a game (previously shared by Frank Jackson in 1964 and Jamaal Charles in 2013) and became the first NFL tight end since 1985 (and just the fourth overall) to have four or more in a game.
So yap with the Raiders as he did, Kelce continued to steer clear of crossing the line. Much as he’s done for five years: The only time since early in the 2017 season that he’s been flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct or taunting was when he was cited for dunking a ball over the goalpost in 2020 in tribute to Tony Gonzalez.
(The NFL in 2014 effectively put the kibosh on the move popularized by Gonzalez, though a league spokesman noted that it’s not a penalty if a player doesn’t smack the crossbar or hang on it.)
As it happens, after his second touchdown in the 30-29 victory over Las Vegas, Kelce ran toward the goal post as if to dunk the ball over it and possibly incur a penalty and a fine.
But this version of Kelce didn’t risk that.
Instead … he went up, came down and handed the ball to the referee.
Not that Reid had been worried. At least far as we could tell with his deadpan delivery.
“I didn’t think he’d do that,” Reid said.
Not any more, anyway.
Meanwhile, Kelce’s restraint stood out all the more on a night when that absurd call on Jones made Reid as angry as anyone has ever seen him.
Well, most anyone.
Asked if he’d ever seen Reid that mad, Kelce grinned and said, “Yeah, a few times. A few times.”
With a laugh, he added, “Maybe not for the right reasons.”
But reasons that make his journey all the more meaningful.