Travis Kelce produced in a major way in Sunday’s Chiefs win over the Chargers, but the team isn’t one bit surprised by that outcome.
It wasn’t in dominating fashion, but the Kansas City Chiefs secured a big-time win over a division rival on Sunday afternoon. Week 4’s win over the Los Angeles Chargers kept the team’s undefeated record intact, and it also served as a landmark performance for one of the game’s brightest stars.
Some would call it a long-overdue outing for tight end Travis Kelce. The future Hall of Fame man started the season slowly, although his numbers finally picked up on Sunday. Leading Kansas City in targets, receptions, yards and yards after the catch, Kelce produced like his younger self less than a week before his 35th birthday.
Head coach Andy Reid, like he’s said all season long, always believed Kelce was going about things the right way.
“I really don’t care what anybody thinks, to be honest with you,” Reid said. “I watch what the defense does and how they respect him. I take it off of that. I watch Trav every day. I get to see him and how he works. He never wants to come out in practice and in the games, he’s all-in all the time. I don’t worry about all of that.”
Kelce’s impressive game happened under unfortunate circumstances, as wide receiver Rashee Rice went down with a knee injury in the first quarter. That put Kelce back in the featured role of the offense, and he ran with it. Of his seven receptions and 89 yards, five and 74 of them, respectively, came in the opening half of play. That includes a 38-yard pickup on the initial Chiefs possession.
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes has never wavered in his support of Kelce, and he wasn’t one bit surprised that the results of a thorough process finally paid off.
“I think it’s a mixture of everything,” Mahomes said. “Obviously with Rashee going down early, you’ve got to factor that [in] and you’ve got to put Kelce back in that situation where he’s getting high-volume catches. And then just the Chargers taking away some of the outside stuff and leaving the middle of the field open, and we were able to get it to Trav in some of those zone coverage. The whole Kelce thing, in general, hasn’t been a worry to me. I know whenever we need him, he’s going to make plays.
That’s what he did today.”
If Rice misses substantial time (an ACL tear was being floated as of the publishing of this article; MRI is pending), all roads could lead back to Kelce. That’s a spot he’s familiar with given his career, and last season’s playoff run saw him dip into the fountain of youth. His 32 receptions, 355 yards and three touchdowns in four games led all NFL pass catchers.
Are the Chiefs going to need something similar in a world without Rice? It’s possible. Is that a realistic bar to set for an aging Kelce? Perhaps not. The real answer likely resides somewhere in the middle, but Sunday provided a reminder of what Kelce is capable of when things are clicking. Kansas City didn’t forget in the first place.
