After his disappointing performance in Super Bowl 59, when he caught just four passes for 39 yards, speculation swirled around Kansas City Chiefs future Hall of Fame tight end Travis Kelce. Would that Super Bowl loss be his last game in the NFL?
Given his ongoing, highly publicized relationship with pop megastar Taylor Swift, his relatively advanced age of 35, and his declining performance â posting career lows in receiving yards (823) and touchdowns (3) â conditions all seemed right for Kelce to finally hang up his cleats after 12 seasons, 10 Pro Bowls and eight All-Pro selections.
Kelce only fueled the retirement rumors when he failed to show up for the Chiefs’ voluntary OTA practice sessions last month.
But when the Chiefs opened their mandatory minicamp this week, Kelce was there, looking fit and trimmed down from last season â though he denied rumors that he had dropped a full 25 pounds since the Super Bowl.
Mahomes Offers Surprising Statement on Kelce
Kelce’s name will always be linked to that of the Chiefs’ quarterback, two-time NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes. The pair have engineered five trips to the Super Bowl, collecting three trophies, since Mahomes debuted in 2017, which was Kelce’s fifth season.
They have also taken the Chiefs to the AFC Championship game seven times. In fact, the only season that they did not get Kansas City to the conference title game was Mahomes’ rookie season.
After Kelce confirmed that he was returning to play for at least one more season, the final season of the two year contract he signed last year that will pay him $19.8 million for the coming season, Mahomes finally spoke out on the subject of Kelce’s potential retirement â and made a surprising admission.
“We never talked about it,” Mahomes revealed.
The 29-year-old quarterback went on to explain why Kelce might want to draw his career to a close.
âI think you have that in the back of your mind â I mean, for anybody thatâs played a lot of football seasons, thereâs always a chance,” Mahomes said at a Wednesday press gathering at the Chief’s minicamp. “You have to put in the work in the offseason. I think everybody wants to play in the games, but putting the work in the offseason [is] where stuff gets strenuous.â
But that clearly has not become the case for Kelce, who in Mahomes’ view is fully prepared to make a run and another Super Bowl ring.
âI think yâall can see it â heâs ready to go,â Mahomes told reporters. âHeâs been putting in the work this offseason, and heâs excited for another chance to make a run at it.â
Kelce Admits, ‘I Failed’
In his own comments at the Kansas City minicamp, Kelce emphasized that he is out for redemption after his subpar, by his standards, 2024 season and how it ended.
âLast year, I think I failed, especially in that last game, in being a leader and being the one that could step up and make plays,â Kelce told the assembled media at the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City, Missouri. âIâm just setting the bar even higher for myself this year than I had in the past.â
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