Travis Kelce got a chance once to play QB for the Chiefs and instantly regretted it

Travis Kelce's defensive coordinator recalled the time the future Hall of Fame tight end tried a new position.
Kansas City Chiefs v New York Giants
Kansas City Chiefs v New York Giants | Jim McIsaac/GettyImages

Travis Kelce is no stranger to making plays for the Kansas City Chiefs as a three-time Super Bowl champion. But while Kelce is more than comfortable with the football in his hands, actually starting a play that way is a different matter entirely. Patrick Mahomes usually has a monopoly on QB duties in Kansas City, and based on the one chance Kelce got to try out the position, it'll probably stay that way moving forward.

It was a game against the New York Giants, when current Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo was coaching the opposing defense. Kelce had his number called for a trick play where he had to make just one read, but instead of throwing the ball to star wideout Tyreek Hill, he decided to go back across the field — where the pass was picked off while never really coming close to its intended receiver.

Travis Kelce will never live down his one shot at playing QB for the Chiefs

Coach Spags, as he’s known by most of his players, joined the “New Heights” podcast with Travis and Jason Kelce to reminisce over this moment from early in the former's career. We see these trick plays around the league and even in college football on SportsCenter all the time, but we usually only remember the successful ones. Watching Kelce toss that ill-advised pass back across the field to Giants safety Landon Collins is as funny as it is painful for Travis to revisit.

"I remember it like it was yesterday," Kelce told Spagnuolo, before adding "that's exactly why I moved to tight end" despite dabbling as a wildcat QB during his college days at Cincinnati. Kelce went on to break down exactly what happened, and why he wound up deciding to heave a ball directly to then-Giants safety Landon Collins.

Obviously, there are plenty of reasons why Kelce settled on the tight end position and this video is just one of them. He’s great at what he does, although the velocity on that intercepted pass wasn’t half bad. However, the placement of it left a lot to be desired. That seems to be a play Chiefs head coach Andy Reid scrapped for the most part, since Kelce hasn’t had many more opportunities to pass the ball since that ill-fated INT during the ‘17 season.