Travis Kelce's return sets up well-deserved emotional farewell tour for Chiefs Kingdom

Travis Kelce is a first-ballot Hall of Famer and one of the greatest Kansas City Chiefs ever. He has given Chiefs fans so much over the years. He's put up stats like the NFL has never seen. He's played through injuries. He's been a key part of the Chiefs winning three Super Bowls. He doesn't owe the Chiefs or the fans anything, but we’re lucky enough to get one more season from him. Travis is coming back, and now we get to give him the farewell he deserves.

Travis Kelce has caught 1,004 regular-season passes for the Kansas City Chiefs. He's piled up 12,151 career receiving yards and 77 career touchdown receptions. Those all put him in the top five all-time among NFL tight ends. He also had an unmatched seven consecutive 1,000-yard seasons at a position where no other tight end has more than four total 1,000-yard seasons in their career, let alone consecutive ones. He's also the career leader for postseason receptions for any position, with 178.

I could keep going, but we all know that he's arguably the greatest tight end the game has ever seen. In June, I did my best to rank objectively the best tight ends of all time. Spoiler: Kelce came out on top. While he may have been slightly overshadowed at times by the brilliance of Patrick Mahomes, he will be a player that everyone who watched the Chiefs over the past decade will remember and talk about for the rest of their lives.

Now that Kelce has officially announced his return for another year, it’s exactly what Chiefs Kingdom needed to say goodbye.

The problem for many of us is that if it had ended now, it would have felt far too sudden. We needed a chance to say goodbye to this Chiefs legend. While I respect a player's right to retire on his terms and avoid making a spectacle of things, that hasn't exactly been Kelce's style. I respect that some players choose to announce their retirement after the season is over. They may want to avoid the spotlight and attention that announcing in advance could bring, but Kelce has never been one to avoid that spotlight. The man is dating the biggest music star on the planet, so a little extra attention on a "farewell tour" season will be nothing for him.

While there was some speculation that last season could be his final campaign, Kelce always gave the impression that he was still having fun and wanted to play as long as he could. Fortunately, we now know that’s the case, as Kelce has confirmed he’s returning, just as Pat McAfee reported.

If the Chiefs had pulled off an NFL-first three-peat, it might have been poetic to ride off into the sunset, but for that beatdown by the Philadelphia Eagles to be the sudden end of his career would have felt wrong—especially with reports that he was recovering from an illness in his final game. To go from "we're going for the three-peat, and I'm going to play as long as I can" to "suddenly, we lost, and I'm done" would have been an unsatisfying way for fans to say goodbye to one of the most successful and popular players in team history.

Again, Kelce doesn't owe us fans anything. If he had chosen to retire, we would have all gotten over our disappointment and still appreciated every amazing moment of his career. However, that career has been such an incredible ride that it's natural for us to want it to have a satisfying conclusion. Yes, another Super Bowl win would be the best possible ending, but even one more full season provides Chiefs Kingdom with the chance to send him off with all the fanfare that he deserves.