The Kansas City Chiefs will enter this season humbled and hungry. A crushing Super Bowl loss to the Philadelphia Eagles ended their three-peat bid and took the Chiefs down a peg. This team is still the clear favorite to come out of the AFC — maybe even to go the distance — but never has Kansas City felt so mortal. So beatable. Now questions about the future loom...
Travis Kelce has seriously contemplated retirement for two straight years. The 35-year-old keeps coming back, though, and he clearly still loves football. That said, it's fair to wonder when he decides to hang 'em up, especially with so many business ventures off the field.
Last season was a step back for Kelce, but he still put up 823 yards and five touchdowns in the regular season before popping up in the playoffs, when he always seems to meet the moment. Kelce maybe isn't the absolute peak of his position right now, but he's still a damn good tight end and the favorite target of Patrick Mahomes, the greatest quarter of his generation, maybe even all time. That counts for something.
He is also close to history at his position. All it takes is a few more years in pads and a helmet.
Travis Kelce needs three more years to achieve GOAT status at tight end
Kelce sits at 12,151 career receiving yards. He has 12 NFL seasons under his belt, but he didn't record a single target as a rookie, so we can strike that campaign from the record. That is roughly 1,104.63 yards per season since Kelce became a regular starter.
If he were to hypothetically maintain those averages for three more seasons, he would surpass Tony Gonzalez's all-time mark of 1,527 yards at the tight end position. Kelce is 2,976 yards away from immortality.
Now, his numbers are on the decline, which is a concern. Kelce hasn't eclipsed 1,000 yards in a season since 2022, which casts doubt upon whether he can realistically maintain his career average for three more years, much less catch Gonzalez. Once we start getting to four or five more years in a Chiefs uniform, we venture into pipe dream territory.
Peak Travis Kelce can catch Tony Gonzalez — if he wants to
Kelce has surprised plenty of times before, however. He's still a uniquely dynamic athlete in his relative old age. The regular season grind has gotten to him, but he turns it up a notch in the playoffs, without fail. Now that Philadelphia has presumably taken the Chiefs offense out of cruise control moving forward, there is motivation to come back stronger than ever. Perhaps that motivation extends to Kelce, who feels like he has another magical season in the tank.
At his absolute peak in 2020, Kelce put up 1,416 yards and 11 touchdowns in a single season. He is 44 touchdowns behind Gonzalez, which is an even tougher number to catch, but the capacity for raw production is still there if Kelce is motivated to unlock it. And therein lies the question: how badly does he want it, if at all?
Odds are Kelce retires before he gets remotely close to Gonzalez and this conversation is rendered moot. But, never say never. This Chiefs team is no stranger to history, and Kelce still has the itch to play football. Who's to say in goes away next offseason, or the offseason after that, or the offseason after that... if he holds out for four more years, somehow, then he doesn't even need to match his career averages, just last season's production. Just saying. Pipe dreams and impossibility are not the same thing.