Distracted? Out of shape? Nope, Chiefs’ Travis Kelce enjoys vintage game

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Travis Kelce has been the subject of a lot of noise in the first month of the NFL season, especially from dismayed fantasy football owners, and the chatter seemed to center around two things.

First, Kelce, who is arguably the greatest tight end in NFL history, had a very un-Kelce-like eight catches for 69 yards with no touchdowns combined in the season’s first three games.

Second, he’s emerged as a massive pop-culture figure — appearing in countless TV ads; co-hosting the nation’s most successful sports podcast with his brother Jason, “New Heights;” branching out into acting roles, including FX’s “Grotesquerie,” Prime Video’s “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?” and hosting “SNL;” and dating Taylor Swift, who is kind of a big deal in her own right.

Kelce is a victim of his own greatness in one sense. He’d never had fewer than 79 yards (Weeks 4-6, 2016) or fewer than nine catches (Weeks 12-14, 2015) in any previous three-game stretch during his NFL career.

Meanwhile, with Kansas City coming off back-to-back Super Bowl titles, the spotlight shines brightest on the Chiefs, so breaking from the gate slowly — with two of those games on national TV — ramped up the exposure.

But it’s also true that Kelce turns 35 next Saturday and Father Time is undefeated, giving inevitability to any great athlete’s decline. Still, it's rare to see so many push to be first on the bandwagon to call an all-time great some version of “washed up.”

Cris Collinworth lamented the loss of “magic” between Kelce and Mahomes on Sunday Night Football in Atlanta, saying he was “flabbergasted” that Kelce wasn’t putting up his typical monster numbers.

Former ESPN analyst Todd McShay went even farther, saying Kelce lacked explosiveness because he was “out of shape” from his “jet-setting” offseason — which, McShay pearl-clutchingly acknowledged, involved a few alcoholic beverages.

Others have suggested he’s distracted and unable or unwilling to focus on football anymore, but Chiefs coach Andy Reid offered an alternate explanation.

“I really don’t care what anybody thinks,” Reid said. “I watch what the defense does and how they respect him. I take it off that. I watch Trav every day, so I get to see him and how he works.”

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes offered a similar assessment after the win against the Falcons last week.

“The respect factor they (opposing defenses) have for Travis is unreal — and it’s deserved,” he said

NFL teams and locker rooms often pretend as if outside opinions don’t substantially penetrate their well-guarded walls and high-flung ivory towers, but that’s largely a myth.

NFL teams and locker rooms are filled with people, who are part of a larger world and have some awareness of things going on outside the castle grounds.

So it is with the Chiefs, whose wide receivers donned matching Kelce shirts before Sunday’s 17-10 comeback win at the Los Angeles Chargers.

Rashee Rice bought the shirts for his teammates in the receiver room “to honor their leader and a guy who has mentored all of them, especially Rice,” according to Tracy Wolfson.

“I think they had heard all the outside noise and they know how much of a leader Travis is, so it was cool to see them show their support,” Mahomes said Sunday during the postgame press conference from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, “then for him to go out there and be Travis, because that’s who he is.”

Kelce, who passed Tony Gonzalez for the most receptions in Chiefs history Sunday, racked up seven catches for 89 yards, starting the game with a season-long 38-yard gain and stepping up after Rice went down with a knee injury.

It was vintage Kelce and validated why no one in Kansas City’s organization or locker room was worried about a few paltry stat lines during a 3-0 — now 4-0 — start.

“The whole Kelce thing — in general, to me — hasn’t been a worry,” Mahomes said. “I know whenever we need him he’s going to make plays and that’s what he did today.”

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