KC Chiefs' Travis Kelce ‘Keeps Getting Better With Time’ After Huge Game vs. LA Chargers
The Kansas City Chiefs scored 31 points against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday, with quarterback Patrick Mahomes tossing four touchdowns in the win. While Mahomes was undoubtedly fantastic in his own right, one of his teammates may have managed to overshadow him with a performance that added to his legend.
For the second consecutive game, tight end Travis Kelce posted a receiving yardage output of greater than 100 yards. In Week 7, in front of the home crowd, he hauled in 12 passes on 13 targets for 179 yards. He scored a touchdown in the first half, too, helping put some points on the board for Kansas City. On an afternoon and evening that already saw him making headlines due to Taylor Swift once again coming to see him play, Kelce's on-field accomplishments rose to the top.
On Sunday night, head coach Andy Reid brought up the seemingly impossible. He believes Kelce is managing to get better as he ages, also joking that Swift is welcome to attend as many of the team's upcoming games as she sees fit.
"Kelce keeps getting better with time," Reid said. "Taylor can stay around all she wants."
Kelce, who turned 34 earlier this month, is in the middle of his 11th season in the NFL. For pass-catching options, simply making it a decade-plus into a career is a tremendous feat. Remaining effective at some level is a plus. Somehow still being the best player at your position? That's mostly unheard of. Seven weeks into the 2023 season, however, this is the reality Kelce finds himself in.
Reid mentioned that one of the key reasons behind Kelce's success is how he's always on the same page as Mahomes. The two are in their sixth season of games together and were teammates for even a year longer, so some level of chemistry is to be expected. What Mahomes and Kelce have is different, though, as they're one of the NFL's all-time best duos when playing and one of the NFL's most iconic duos off the field. Mahomes has gotten off to perhaps the best-ever start to a quarterback's career with Kelce's help, and Kelce has posted his best numbers with Mahomes as his quarterback. When asked about what makes Kelce keep finding success, Mahomes said it's his ability to read and understand what the defense is showing him.
"Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of things," Mahomes said. "But I think the main thing is how he's able to recognize coverage and adjust on the fly. We always talk about it, but it's something that you can't take for granted. It's almost like he's playing Madden, like he can read the coverage, stop in the windows, be open and be on the same page as me at all times. He did a great job. He does it week in and week out, and that's why he's the player he is and he'll be a Hall-of-Famer one day."
Like Mahomes also brought up, Kelce has played against "every single team and every coverage" over the course of his career. That allows him to get a leg up in preparation every week, as well as giving him additional advantages in real-time processing and subsequent adjustments during games. Mahomes used the term "dissect" when discussing Kelce, which is a fitting choice. While the veteran tight end certainly goes on his fair share of freelance routes, there seems to be an exact science to what he's doing. He's surgical in how he operates, even when it looks like he's just playing backyard football.
Just over a week ago, NFL legend Rob Gronkowski said that Kelce is the best receiving tight end the league has ever seen. It's hard to disagree with that, especially as he's back on track to extend his historic 1,000-yard season streak to a whopping eight years if he can finish the 2022-23 campaign healthy. There isn't much that Kelce has left to prove at this point, as he has a gold jacket and plenty of post-career influence waiting for him whenever he's ready to hang up the cleats. Even as he physically slows down a bit, he's mentally sharper than ever. It's apparent on the field and after yet another example of it, wideout Marquez Valdes-Scantling says there's nothing a defense can do to stop him.
"He's the best tight end in the NFL, in the history of football," Valdes-Scantling said. "So there's not really much to say past that. He's the best to ever do it. You can know what you want to run, and he'll still get open."
