Travis Kelce has been hit with a big fine after the NFL determined the tight end made “obscene gestures” during the Kansas City Chiefs’s first home game.
During Kansas City’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, September 14, Kelce, 35, appeared to celebrate a 23-yard run by miming juggling his own testicles as a taunt to the opposing team.
Though the moment initially went unnoticed by referees, it was caught on camera and shared widely online. As reported by NBC News on Saturday, September 20, league officials caught wind and slapped Kelce with a $14,491 fine.
The beginning of the NFL season has been a testy one for Kelce. During the same game, Kelce was caught telling his teammates, “I’m sick of this s***” before the Fox broadcast went to break. The Chiefs ultimately lost the game 20-17 and are currently 0-2, the worst start for the franchise since 2014.
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The loss was in part attributed to a mistake Kelce made during the game’s fourth quarter, when he flubbed a pass from quarterback Patrick Mahomes, which allowed the Eagles’ Andrew Mukuba to intercept the ball. The Eagles ended up scoring a touchdown off the play, which boosted the score to 20-10 in their favor.
The game prompted Shannon Sharpe to tear into Kelce on his “Nightcap” podcast the same day.
“Kelce has been lazy,” Sharpe, 57, said. “He’s getting lazy with his head and he’s getting lazy with his eyes. He knows in that area of the field, he has to snap his head. He knows, I don’t know why he is so lazy with his head.”
Sharpe, a former tight end for the Chiefs, continued: “There is nobody inside, and [Reed] Blankenship has got you manned. Why are you so lazy? Your head, you have got to snap it around, you know that. And you took points off the board. In other words, you don’t get points and they go down and they get points.”
The retired footballer also said that Kelce’s teammate Mahomes, 30, needs more talent around him on the field. “There is nothing special about anybody on that team right now offensively other than Patrick Mahomes,” Sharpe insisted.
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Kelce himself has acknowledged the struggles he’s faced so far this season.
“I know it’s kinda sounding like a broken record from last year’s Super Bowl, but that’s on us as leaders,” he said on the September 10 episode of his “New Heights” podcast after the Chiefs lost their first game of the season. “I’ll take the most accountability myself. I wasn’t ready for that first drive.”
