Travis Kelce is starting to show the signs of his uncharacteristically slow start to the season.
Kelce, 34, was spotted by NBC’s Sunday Night Football cameras looking despondent as the clock wound down in the Kansas City Chiefs’ 22-17 victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, September 22.
Despite the Chiefs earning their third victory in a row, it was another lackluster night for Kelce who finished with four catches for 30 yards. Through the first three games of the season, Kelce has yet to score a touchdown.
“The face of everyone who drafted Travis Kelce in fantasy,” Yahoo Fantasy Sports posted via X with a screenshot of Kelce.
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Another account posted, “Travis Kelce looks absolutely DONE.”
During the NBC broadcast, analyst Cris Collinsworth expressed his surprise at how little chemistry Kelce seemed to be having with quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
“I’m just flabbergasted,” Collinsworth said in the second quarter. “I mean, one game, big deal. Two games, alright. This is the third game now where we have not seen the magic of Mahomes and Kelce. And I can’t really explain that one.”
After the game, which was the first of the season not attended by Kelce’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift, Mahomes, 29, downplayed the discussion, insisting the Chiefs’ opponents have not been making things easy for the team’s star tight end.
“The respect factor they have for Travis is just unreal,” he told the media. “It’s well-deserved. But I mean, we’re calling a lot of plays for Travis and it’s like two or three people are going to him.”
Mahomes continued, “He understands. I think that’s the great thing about him. He wants to make an impact on the game, but he wants to win at the end of the day. I’m going to try to keep doing my best to keep feeding him the ball whenever he’s there, whenever he’s open.”
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Following the Chiefs’ Week 2 win over the Cincinnati Bengals — in which Kelce only had one catch, the first time since September 2018 that he didn’t have three or more in a game — Kelce said he’s no longer concerned about his statistical bottom line.
“I stopped caring about stats about four or five years ago,” he told brother Jason Kelce on their “New Heights” podcast September 18. “I just went out there and started to play free and play for my guys. Sure enough, I think that’s the better mentality. You think about it more play by play and what your job is on that specific play.”
Kelce continued, “For whatever reason, these past two games it hasn’t gone that way for me. That’s football, man. I’m not about to sit here and get frustrated about it. I used to get really, really pissed off and almost lose my cool a lot of the time from not having that success knowing I demand that out of myself. I just like to play the game to such a high level of accountability that it’s tough for me to deal with me being mediocre or having stats that represent that.”
The Chiefs return to action Sunday, September 29 at 4:25 pm ET against the Los Angeles Chargers.
