Kansas City Chiefs Laddie Morse

Chiefs Travis Kelce: A Breed Apart

LadnerMorse November 27, 2019 No Comments Gallery

 

Chiefs Travis Kelce: A Breed Apart – it’s time to give some love to a player who has spent his whole career with the Chiefs… in fact, his whole career under Andy Reid… and now that he’s 30 years old, is considered the best at his position in the National Football League.

 

Last month, Mr. Kelce quietly turned 30 years old but continues to produce like he did in his first full season of play. In fact, better. He was drafted in the 2013 NFL draft by the Chiefs, then GM, John Dorsey and Andy Reid in the 3rd round with pick #63, 6 picks ahead of Tyrann Mathieu. In Kelce’s rookie year, he played in just one game before injuring his knee (which was bothering him in training camp as well). In October of 2013, Joel Thorman of ArrowheadPride wrote a piece called, “Travis Kelce’s Knee Injury Could Miss Him the Entire Season for the Kansas City Chiefs” in which he quotes Rick Burkholder, the Chiefs trainer,

 

“Yesterday, [Kelce] had arthroscopic surgery on his knee. He did find he had a spot on his cartilage at the end of his femur bone. That didn’t show up on his MRI but when [the doctor] went in with the scope he could see it. That spot in his knee is in a non-weight bearing area, which is why he could run without pain but couldn’t get in and out of his stance, had to have a microfracture procedure.”

 

Microfracture surgery is nothing to sneeze at for a pro athlete and the chances of coming back from such a procedure are less than if one only has cartilage or ligament surgery plus there is a “fail rate” for microfracture surgery.

 

That should tell fans just how rare Travis Kelce is, especially with all that he has accomplished. With 167 more yards this year, over the next 5 games, Kelce is a lock to surpass the 1,000 yard mark for the 4th year… IN A ROW. Something no other tight end in NFL history has ever done. In fact, only one other TE (Greg Olsen) has ever had three consecutive 1,000 yard seasons, so Kelce is already in rarified air.

 

After recovering from microfracture surgery, Kelce posted back to back 800+ yard seasons with Alex Smith pitching him strikes. Then Kelce put up seasons of,

 

      • 1,125 – 2016
      • 1,038 – 2017 
      • 1,336 – 2018

 

… and now, with 833 yards to his credit this year, he is on the verge of another hallmark season. Here’s one of my favorite Kelce plays when he launches from the five yard line and lands one yards deep in the end zone (from 2018):

 

 

What many fans may not recall is the history of TEs just prior to Travis Kelce being drafted by the Chiefs. Just three years before Kelce was taken, TE Tony Moeaki was drafted in the 3rd round of the 2010 draft by Scott Pioli. Moeaki started out great with a beautiful catch in the end zone but his career was cut short when he fractured his shoulder.

 

The reason the Chiefs drafted Moeaki was that they had just traded away Tony Gonzalez, at his request, to the Atlanta Falcons. Of course, Gonzo had broken Shannon Sharpe’s all-time receiving record for tight ends in the 2008 season but because the Chiefs were such a bad team, he asked to be moved to a contender. The Chiefs received a 2nd round pick in exchange for Gonzo and used that to draft CB Javier Arenas that same year. Arenas was eventually traded to Arizona for some meat: FB Anthony Sherman (aka, The Sausage).

 

This is one of the reasons that Chiefs fans embrace Travis Kelce so much. Another reason is that Kelce signed a five-year team friendly contract extension with the Chiefs on January 26, 2016 which is worth $46.8 million with $20 million guaranteed. In 2019, only Jimmy Graham makes more ($10M) than Kelce ($9.4M) among all NFL tight ends.

 

Now, Kelce’s presence in the Chiefs offense is critical to its success. He has the hands and moves of a wide receiver but stands 6-foot-5 and goes 260 lbs. The most recent game against the Chargers shows his great footwork and sticky hands:

 

 

Along with Tyreek Hill, Sammy Watkins, Demarcus Robinson, and Mecole Hardman, Kelce helps to give the Kansas City Chiefs one of the best receiving corps in the NFL.

 

 

A picture is worth a thousand words… so… a video is…

 

 

 

 

Remember, this was the same man who had microfracture surgery. Amazing, is what Travis Kelce is.

 

Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

 

 

 

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