The 2025 season has been an unprecedented one for the Kansas City Chiefs. The team is 6-7 and their playoff hopes are on life support at this point. The latest loss was a 10-point defeat at the hands of the Texans on Sunday Night Football and it was a tough one for Travis Kelce to talk about on his weekly New Heights podcast with his brother, Jason Kelce.
Travis sounded defeated talking about the loss on his podcast, noting that it feels like no matter what he does, it's not working.
"It's been a tough f***ing go-around for the past two days... You put in all this f***ing work in hopes that it pays off and right now it just... for whatever f***ing reason, man, it's little things. It's -- I don't know -- discipline. And I feel like I've always had the answers in years past and this year it just - I just can't find 'em. And I keep thinking if I show up to work and I put in the work and I fix the issues through my practice habits... and perfecting the game plan and my fundamentals and what I'm being taught and go out there and try to play my ass off for my guys next to me, it's all going to come together like it has in years past and this year is just not, man. Not to say that I won't keep doing that. It's all that I can do. I'm going to always show up to work and f***ing give it my all."
Kelce was targeted five times in the loss and had just one catch for eight yards, making it by far the worst performance of the year for him. He also had a terrible drop late in the game and brought that up not long after while talking about how the path to the playoffs is a grim timeline for him and the rest of the team to be in.
"Obviously, looking at the playoffs, this is a tough reality to be in, especially with... Just how we've always found a way in years past. It's a s***ty f***ing feeling, especially dropping the f***ing ball late in the game like that when we were on our last f***ing chance to make something shake. It's a s***ty feeling, man."
Travis Kelce sounds lost after latest Chiefs meltdown
This is definitely unchartered territory for Kelce, as he's clearly grown accustomed to being not just in the playoffs but in the Super Bowl. He joined the Chiefs in Andy Reid's first year as the team's head coach and considering the Chiefs have not had a losing season under Reid's tutelage and have missed the playoffs just one time during his tenure, Kelce's experienced a lot of winning seasons. So yeah, this is a new feeling for him and it's going to be hard for him to process that.
While other fanbases won't sympathize with Kelce considering the run of success he's had in the league, it's difficult for Chiefs fans to hear Kelce sound so defeated. He truly sounds like he's at a loss what else he and the rest of the team can do to right the ship and while that's not exactly the attitude you want a star player on the team to have, it's hard to blame him here. He's right in that the Chiefs have been able to find ways to turn things around in the past but they have not had that same kind of luck in 2025.
Getting into the playoffs will be a struggle for this squad and for Kelce, it'll be the first time he hasn't been a participant in the postseason since 2014. That was only his second year in the league and he was a mere 25 years old. He's 36 now, so a lot of time has passed since that playoff-less season and yeah, that's got to be a strange feeling for the star tight end.
Maybe the Chiefs pull off the impossible and find their way into the playoffs after all but from Kelce's body language here, it doesn't feel like that's going to happen.