Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes duo to help the Chiefs win another Super Bowl. Can they? (Image via Getty Images)
Nine months ago, Patrick Mahomes was being helped off the field in Kansas City with torn ligaments in his left knee and a 6-11 season already confirmed. Mahomes is cleared for Week 1. He is 36. He has three Super Bowl rings, 1,080 career receptions, and absolutely nothing left to prove statistically. Last season, playing behind a struggling offense and with Mahomes eventually lost to injury in Week 15, Kelce still led the Chiefs in every major receiving category. His 11.2 yards per reception was actually his best mark since 2022.
Kelce signed for one more year.
Kelce told his brother Jason on their New Heights podcast exactly what shifted his thinking. Travis Kelce watched it happen and spent the winter thinking hard about whether he still had a reason to come back. Both of them are here now. And the Chiefs, written off by much of the league after their worst season in over a decade, are preparing to remind people why they never really go away. The retirement conversation around Kelce was real this offseason. He is married to Taylor Swift. Most players in his position would have called it a career. “I could see the hard work starting just weeks after the surgery. I could see the determination; I could see the frustration in his mind that it got to this point this year. That’s a huge reason why I’m still playing the game. One hundred and eight targets. Seventy-six catches. Eight hundred and fifty-one yards. Five touchdowns. That is not age-related decline. That is a player adapting his game while everyone around him has made his job harder.
Projections for 2026 have Kelce at 81 catches, 883 yards, and 7 touchdowns. If those numbers hold, he finishes as a top-five tight end in the league at age 37. Their 2025 divisional record was 1-5, which nearly matched their total divisional losses across the previous seven years under Mahomes combined.
The Chiefs’ receiving room remains thin outside of Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy, which means Mahomes will be leaning on Kelce in exactly the situations he always has. Third and long. Red zone. Fourth quarter. The schedule does not do Kansas City any favors. Road games against the Bills, the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, the Bengals, and the Rams give the Chiefs one of the five toughest slates in the league.