KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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Has Travis Kelce played his final game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium? That’s the $1.8-billion question.
“The only time it ever crossed my mind,” Kelce, a notoriously ornery Chiefs tight end and future Pro Football Hall of Famer, said, “I was driving in the other day and I saw how much the Powerball was. I was like, ‘Man, if I could just win that, I wouldn’t have to work another day in my life.’”
Kelce had jokes.
That’s no surprise, except that Kansas City (6-10) lost its fifth straight game and seventh in the last eight tries on Christmas night at Arrowhead. Renowned by teammates as a consummate competitor, that made Kelce oddly jovial in the locker room and at the postgame podium.
The Chiefs have been eliminated from playoff contention for a few weeks, so the stakes were as low as they’ve ever been for Kelce in a late-December game. Maybe that’s all it was.
Undoubtedly, he’s mulling the retirement decision — probably even knows which way he’s leaning — but Kelce wasn’t ready to tell the world after a Week 17 loss to Denver.
“Honestly, I’ve been just focused on trying to win football games, man,” Kelce said. “I’ll let that be a decision that I make with my family, friends (and) the Chiefs organization when the time comes.”
Chiefs Kingdom and his Chiefs teammates certainly aren’t ready for Kelce to ride into the sunset.
“I hope not, man — (dang),” defensive tackle Chris Jones said. “We’ve just been through so much together and Travis has been such a pivotal point of this offense for so long. He’s been like a brother, man.”
Kelce, whose seven straight 1,000-yard seasons from 2016-22 are an NFL record, had showered and pulled his jeans on by the time I approached fellow tight end Noah Gray for an interview.
When Gray arrived in the Chiefs’ locker room nearly five years ago, Kelce already was an established leader, so he was eager to learn from and emulate the four-time All-Pro and 11-time Pro Bowler.
“We were actually joking earlier today about the first time that he texted me and kind of like that shock moment of, ‘Wow, this is really Kels, a guy that I've been watching for a long time,’” Gray said.
If Kelce does leave the NFL to lean into married life and his next act as an entertainer — be it as a podcaster, actor, gameshow host, car enthusiast, concert promoter or a WWE tag-team star with his brother, Jason — nobody will begrudge him.
But I wondered about Gray’s journey from awestruck draft pick to Kelce’s close friend.
Nearby, Kelce had returned to gather a few items from his locker and overheard the question: “Friend? We’re brothers,” he said, smiling wryly.
I laughed as Gray responded: “We are brothers. He's the absolute best, can't say enough.”
Kelce then said he’d leave Gray alone to answer the question without further interruptions or possible awkwardness.
“Yeah, thank you,” Gray said before his own quick pivot. “Well, you can stay actually. I got a lot of nice things to say about you.”
Everybody in Kansas City’s locker room did.
*****
When Brashard Smith arrived this offseason, Kelce was entrenched not only as a football star, but he was dating — and soon to be engaged to — arguably the most-famous woman on the planet, Taylor Swift.
Kelce has become a ubiquitous pitchman, a regular in films and on TV, and the weekly “New Heights” podcast he hosts with his brother is one of the internet’s biggest sensations.
“My first time, I was shocked,” Smith said of crossing paths with Kelce at the team facility. “I'm not going to lie. It felt weird just, just seeing those guys on the TV and now actually being on their team. It’s crazy — and I still, believe it or not, I still get shocks.”
Kelce arrived in Kansas City nearly 13 years ago as a brash, immature kid from Cleveland Heights whose raw talent was perhaps only surpassed by cockiness and unbridled energy, but he’s aged into a magnanimous and passionate leader.
“We know the level of stardom that he has and everything he has going on in his life, but he’s such a down-to-earth person,” linebacker Drue Tranquill said. “He’s so generous — with his time, with his resources, with his finances, renting out spaces for guys to get together. He’s done so many amazing things for this organization and these guys.”
Tranquill added that he treats “practice squad guy that came in Week 17” with the same love and respect as fellow All-Pro veterans.
“He’s really intentional with all the guys, and we certainly appreciate him for it,” Tranquill said.
It’s not an act — on the football field or with the kids he’s helped and inspired at Operation Breakthrough’s Ignition Lab among other endeavors.
“What you see is what he is,” Gray said. “He loves his teammates, he loves his family, he loves his fiancée, he loves everybody. He's a guy that just pours love into every room that he walks into and radiates happiness and joy. He’s just a guy that everybody wants to be around, and it's a blast.”
*****
About 45 minutes before kickoff Thursday, Kelce was vibing as he usually does during warmups, dancing at the 35-yard line as he waited his turn to run routes on air.
When the tight ends jogged to the end zone for some blocking drills, Kelce bumped fists with Chiefs offensive line coach Andy Heck among the way.
After the drills were finished, Kelce commiserated with the defensive line before giving the tight end group a pep talk.
He slapped high fives with the secondary as the starters ran through final paces against one another, greeted Nick Bolton with a gentle helmet nudge and Drue Tranquill with a shoulder bash, then dapped up the defensive line as he shifted from the right to the left side of the formation between reps.
It was business as usual for Kelce, who lifted his helmet over his head and clapped against the back of it, acknowledging the love from fans just about the steps to the locker-room tunnel behind the Chiefs’ bench.
If there was a moment before the game that belied Kelce’s emotions in the moment, it may have come as he was introduced with the offensive starters. Did he linger an extra moment to bask in Chiefs Kingdom’s full-throated greeting?
“You only get a few of those where you just get to stand there and appreciate 60,000 to 70,000 Chiefs fans screaming for you,” Kelce said, “so I always embrace that moment, man. It’s fun.”
Kelce, who led Kansas City with five catches for 36 yards Thursday, can still play. He entered the week with more receiving yards than any other AFC tight end and ranked third in the NFL behind only Arizona’s Trey McBride and Atlanta’s Kyle Pitts.
There are times it’s clear Kelce is 36, not 26, but he remains a productive player, an above-average tight end, and an asset to any NFL roster — someone the Chiefs almost certainly would welcome back for another season.
“We’ll talk another time about all of that,” coach Andy Reid said.
His teammates were more direct.
“To watch Trav go — I hope this isn’t the last year,” Jones said. “I hope he gives it one more — just one more, man; just one more.”
Tranquill, who played against Kelce for four seasons with the Chargers before joining the Chiefs in 2023, knows how important he is as a tone-setter: “He’s the ultimate competitor, he loves to win, his energy is high. He’s a guy you want on your team. He makes plays in the crunch time. He’s kind of the engine to the team, and you feel that on a day-to-day basis.”
*****
There’s a universe in which Kelce caught a touchdown pass as time expired in Super Bowl LIX, giving the Chiefs the first three-peat in NFL history.
Knowing his career could never get better, he left on the highest of high notes, but in this universe, Kansas City got thumped last February against Philadelphia and Kelce came back for the final year of his contract.
That felt purposeful, even natural, given his fiancée’s connection to the number 13 with Kelce heading into his 13th season, but the competitor in him couldn’t leave on such a sour note.
Now, after a 2025 season filled with more bitter notes and with his partner-in-Lombardi-winning crime, Patrick Mahomes, facing the grueling offseason rehab after tearing ligaments in his left knee Dec. 14, how comfortable is Kelce walking away?
“I haven’t talked to him about any of that,” Kelce said of Mahomes. “I wish obviously this season wouldn’t have happened the way that it did — with him going down.”
Does he have another offseason of straining in him? Another season of bumps and bruises and untold aches in bones that aren’t getting younger?
Kelce will take some time to get away — maybe do some wedding planning with Queen Tay-Tay — but otherwise seek to clear his mind and weigh his future.
He’s out of contract and he’s lost a step from his heyday, when he reached heights never before fathomed by an NFL tight end, but there’s room for one last ride if Kelce wants to hop aboard.
If not, Kelce has a great life to look forward to, leaves behind a career’s worth of crazy highlights, and deserves a salute if he never plays another down at Arrowhead.
“He's a phenomenal dude — great player, but an even better guy, and someone that I'm very privileged to call brother, a guy that I'll go into battle with every single day,” Gray said. “The amount of knowledge and information that he's taught me and other guys, not even just the tight-end room, but receivers, running backs — everyone that he's around, he just uplifts the locker room. It's just something that I'm always going to remember. He's just a phenomenal dude, and I'm looking forward to continue playing with him.”
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