OVERVIEW
In high school, Kelce was a three sport star, but his best sport was always football. He was a three-year letter winner at quarterback, and earned All-Lake Erie League honors after totaling 2,539 yards of total offense and 31 total touchdowns as a senior. Kelce’s uncle Don Blalock played football at Purdue and grandfather Don Blalock played football at Ohio. Travis is the younger brother of former Cincinnati Bearcats and current Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce.
In his first year on campus, Travis redshirted. In his redshirt freshman year, Kelce participated in 11 games as the tight end. He caught one pass for three yards. Kelce also played some quarterback, strictly in a Wildcat role. He logged eight carries for 47 yards and two touchdowns. Kelce did not play in 2010, as he was suspended for a violation of team rules. Upon his return in 2011, Kelce caught 13 passes for 150 yards and two touchdowns. In his senior season, Kelce put himself on the NFL prospect map, as he caught 45 passes for 722 yards and eight touchdowns. He was selected to the All-Big East first team for his play.
ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS Kelce has an ideal tight end frame. Athletic for his size, with great strength, and the ability to stretch the field vertically. Very physical run blocker, generates power from the lower half, and will move defenders off the ball. Plays with leverage. Wide catching radius, can adjust and make the difficult catch. Tough to bring down after the catch. Light feet, and has lined up in numerous different positions.
WEAKNESSES Suspended for an entire season for violating team rules. Only one season of production. Doesn't have blazing speed. Not a tremendously explosive athlete. Doesn't come out of his breaks all that well.
NFL COMPARISON Rob Gronkowski
BOTTOM LINE Kelce has been a tremendous run blocker throughout his career for the Bearcats, but really elevated his game as a receiver in his senior season. He isn't a tremendous athlete, but he does a lot of things very well. It's a deep tight end class, but Kelce's play suggests that he should be highly sought after. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mile High Mania:
Ha.. lots of good ones early on in this thread.
I do think it's fair to perhaps grade any "Why didn't we take a QB!?!?" complaints on a curve here.
I mean, we were stuck in the wilderness for a half decade with Howdy Doody under center. We were all a little nuts then.
CP might as well have stood for Chocolate Pain for about 10 weeks there.
I'll give some folks a bit of a pass. Except for that guy who said we didn't need a TE because we have Broeaki and Fasano. That's a bridge too dumb. [Reply]
I already apologized for my jabroni behavior when we drafted Kelce.
I have since attempted to deflect attention away by pointing at Clay in the months before we drafted Mahomes, but that still doesn’t excuse my behavior.
I’m not beyond shitting on draft prospects the moment they become Chiefs, especially if they’re obvious (Breeland Speaks, anyone?) but Kelce wasn’t that kind of prospect.
At the time I just wanted blood to be spilled, and if it was innocent blood, so much the better. [Reply]
There will be a day when my takes on how “the game has passed Andy by” in fall 2015 will be used to bury me. I fully admit I deserve the burial when the time comes, and am simply enjoying biding my time since then.
My year+ long moaning about losing Dorsey can be used to roast eulogy me afterwards. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Titty Meat:
We were coming off a 2-14 season and arguably one of the worst decades of Chiefs football. This board was beaten the **** down
This is a good point. Reid hadn't coached a game yet, and this place was reeling.
I didn't comment on Kelce because I really didn't know who he was. Seriously, who would have known he was going to be the greatest to ever play the position? [Reply]
Originally Posted by htismaqe:
He was drafted by the ****ing Jets and then played for the pre-Daboll Giants.
Andy could have gotten something out of him, guaranteed.
If anyone could have gotten something out of him back then, it was Andy Reid.
Still, you gotta wonder WTF happened with him. Didn't he start out rated highly as the #1 QB on the board and then as it got closer to the draft he fell? Perhaps teams saw something majorly wrong with him. Something was a red flag, I assume. Attitude or something like that. And it turns out they were right. And maybe it took Geno a decade to mature to the point where he could be a serviceable NFL QB. Man, I would loved to have been a fly on the wall when NFL teams were discussing him. [Reply]
