As Travis Kelce comes into his 14th year, there's very little left to play for, at least in any achievement-related sense. Multiple championships have been won. Franchise records have fallen. Historic greatness has been established. At this point, it's about a love for the game, and Kelce has repeated that sentiment in his comments about returning to the Kansas City Chiefs for the '26 season.
At this point, it's not healthy for either the player or the team to believe that the future Hall of Fame tight end can shoulder the burden of being the Chiefs' primary offensive target. The Chiefs have rebuilt the backfield around Kenneth Walker to add another dimension to the offense while they hope that younger investments like Rashee Rice and/or Xavier Worthy can ease the load on Kelce and provide Patrick Mahomes with a volume target.
But that's not to cast a shadow over Kelce's importance to Mahomes and the Chiefs' offense. Last year, he caught 76 passes for 851 yards and was the only Chiefs player to eclipse 100 targets. On a per-game basis, Rice would have carried the greatest share of targets in the passing attack (at just under 10 targets/game), but he was only available for 8 contests. Kelce averaged just over 6 targets per game, by comparison.
That secondary level is what Rob Gronkowski is predicting for Kelce once again. The former New England Patriots tight end is one of the few colleagues of Kelce who would understand what it's like to perform at such a high level on championship contenders, and Gronk recently spoke with Sports Illustrated about his expectations for Kelce coming into a season in which he'll turn 37 years old.
The former Patriots tight end recently spoke about his expections for Kelce in his 14th NFL season.
"He's gonna be solid," said Gronk. "I'm gonna say at least 800 yards this season and about 75-plus catches. That's a very effective tight end in the NFL. That's gonna be top-five numbers, no doubt about that. And that's all he needs to do. He doesn't need to do any home run plays. He just needs to be consistent and get the first downs for Patrick [Mahomes] and let the other guys in the offense take care of all the big plays."
Kelce's ability to stave off the aging wall that comes for every other NFL veteran will likely depend on Gronk's prediction that other players are doing some heavy lifting. Walker's explosive play rate should be a big benefit for Kelce to create more room as an intermediate target. If Worthy and Rice can stay healthy and available, the job will be even easier. Tyquan Thornton also showed tremendous promise with limited opportunities a year ago, and it's possible that his hopes for a greater share of the responsibility will lighten the load.
But of course, all of this comes with questions. There's a reason why Chiefs Kingdom has sounded the alarm about the WR room in general, frustrated by an offseason that largely overlooked the position. Re-signing Thornton and drafting Cyrus Allen on day three of the draft were the only moves of note at wideout, which was already a frustrating position for each of the last two seasons.
The Chiefs are trusting their process at wide receiver while also trusting Father Time to take it easy on the legendary tight end. Kelce is back for another year with the belief that there's more left in the tank. Here's hoping Gronk is right about his steady production, even as Kelce likely hopes that Mahomes learns to trust some others.
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