Fans didn't know it at the time, but the 2013 offseason would go on to be a massive one for the Kansas City Chiefs. The franchise was coming off a league-worst 2-14 season in 2012 and needed to completely revamp things.
That led to Andy Reid being hired as the head coach and, well, the rest is history. Also in that 2013 offseason, the Chiefs spent their third-round pick on Cincinnati tight end Travis Kelce. We all know how well that pick turned out to be for Kansas City.
Kelce and Reid had previously discussed how the pick came to be on an episode of the New Heights podcast and it's a gem of a story. Reid explained how he first saw Kelce and the Cincinnati Bearcats play against Templer during the 2012 season when Reid was still coaching the Philadelphia Eagles.
“Game’s over. They just destroyed Temple. I come over to the locker room. He comes walking over, just bee-boppin, just giving me the business like we’re long, lost friends. And deep down, I’m going, ‘If I get my hands on that son of a buck, I am gonna rip his heart out.’ But I played along with it. Cocky, cocky, damn he was cocky.”
Fast forward to the draft five months later and Kelce wasn't so cocky then. Kelce assumed he was going to be the first tight end drafted but he ended up slipping to the third round and being the fifth tight end taken behind Tyler Eifert, Zach Ertz, Gavin Escobar, and Vance McDonald.
Shortly after, Kelce's phone rang with a Missouri area code. While it seems crazy to think about now, the Chiefs didn't used to be the only NFL team in Missouri, as St. Louis had a team during that time as well -- Jeff Fisher's Rams.
“And Missouri is, at the time, Kansas City, St. Louis,” Kelce recalled. “And Jeff Fisher was in St. Louis, and it was meme central over there for Jeff Fisher. He was getting tore up left and right. And in my head, I see the Missouri number and I’m just like, ‘(expletive).’
“I answer it and it’s Andy Reid! ‘Hey, Coach Reid! How you doing?’ He asked me, straight to the point, ‘Are you going to (expletive) this up, man?’ And I was like, ‘Huh? No, I’m not. I’m going to be the best tight end you’ve ever coached.’ And he said, ‘Alright, hand the phone to your brother.’”
From there, Kelce handed the phone to his brother, then-Eagles center Jason Kelce who had played under Reid for two years in Philadelphia. Jason recalled how Reid asked, "If I draft your brother right now, is he going to screw this up?’ to which Jason said no. The rest is history.
It's always fun hearing Travis Kelce's draft day story
First and foremost, this story is great because we all know the Kelce pick worked out as well as it could for Kansas City. Even before Patrick Mahomes was drafted in 2017 and eventually helped lead the Chiefs to five Super Bowl appearances, Kelce was a bonafide star in the NFL. He had his own reality TV dating show in 2016 and was the star of the team during a time when the Chiefs didn't have many stars.
Secondly, it's always fun when St. Louis gets torn to shreds. Kelce's first reaction to potentially going to St. Louis being a swear word is hilarious and it's definitely safe to say that he wouldn't be the guy he is now if Fisher and the Rams had drafted him.
Fortunately, it was the right Missouri team bringing Kelce in and he's made it worth their while for sure.