Yes, Travis Kelce will turn 37. Yes, Travis Kelce might be playing his last season in the league. To ESPN’s Mina Kimes, the fact could not have been clearer.
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“He is clearly his age, and it shows he is not peak Travis Kelce anymore,” ESPN NFL analyst Mina Kimes said on The Sports Gossip Show. “It’s a little bit of a bummer that people will watch that and associate it with the fact that he’s married to a pop star and not that he’s 37.”
Kelce losing his clip is a discussion designated for a grey area. He played all 17 games last year and recorded 76 catches for 851 yards and five touchdowns. The numbers are far from what he used to post in his prime, but he was the lead pass-catcher for the Chiefs last year in an otherwise underwhelming offense. He was the oldest in that passing attack and was still Mahomes’ trusted target.
Fans had assumed Kelce would be calling time on his career this year, after the Chiefs finished 6-11. It wasn’t the best note to bid farewell to the sport, but 13 years is a long time. The last time he crossed the 1,000-yard mark was the 2020 season, which marked the seventh straight year he’d surpassed that number. However, Kelce was apparently never in the mood to quit, according to head coach Andy Reid.
“He was pretty sure after the season he was going to come back,” he said.
“We had exit interviews and he basically said, ‘I’m not going out like this,'” General Manager Brett Veach told SiriusXM NFL Radio. “‘I’m gonna take a few weeks off here, but let’s get in touch and let’s plan on me being here.'”
Kelce returned and signed yet another extension in March this year, ending rumors about his retirement. However, his skeptics seem to have an agenda against him.
The star tight end joined training camp after he got married to Taylor Swift. But somebody used AI to morph his photos and make it look like he had put on weight, furthering the narrative that Kelce is done for after this year. The Athletic’s Jesse Newell beat that idea down by sharing his own snaps of Kelce from practice, sans fake beer belly.
Kelce might be nearing his forties, but his enthusiasm and commitment are keeping the younger players in check.
“There’s no excuses when you have the old guy out there running routes and stuff like that,” linebacker Nick Bolton said at a presser.
“You have examples like Kelce—he’s the oldest guy on the team and came out every day and worked to where you had to yank him out of there to give him a breather,” Reid added.
The Chiefs still need Travis Kelce in 2026 because he remains Mahomes’ biggest support on the field. The wide receiver corps is still young and inexperienced, compared to Kelce’s 15,080 career receiving yards (including postseason stats) he’s tallied in these 13 years. Rashee Rice is expected to be WR1 for the Chiefs, but he had knee surgery this May, and missed time in practice because he was serving time in prison.
Behind him, the Chiefs have Xavier Worthy, Tyquan Thornton, and rookie Cyrus Allen, who has impressed coaches and fans this offseason. But Kelce still plans to ball out this season.
“I’m still in love with this game,” Kelce said in March on The Pat McAfee Show. “I still love going to work, putting on the pads, grinding it out and just playing the game.”
Travis Kelce will return for Year 14 with the Chiefs on September 14 to take on the Denver Broncos. Only time will tell if this is the star tight end’s last dance in the NFL. But what we know for sure is Kelce will find himself in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the future, after having played as one of the best tight ends in modern NFL history.