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 Fishels:
Going to be a sad sad day whenever Kelce has to hang it up.
Feels like it's closer than ever before.
I wonder if he regrets not hanging it up last year and go out on a high. I wouldn't be shocked if after this season, he announces that next year will be his last.
It will be sad for sure and the end of an era. You just picture Mahomes and Kelce together forever. :-) [Reply]
Definitely not washed. And even when his athletic skills decline, he’s twice the kind of any football player out there. See :13 for an example of that.
His mental gifts are going to waste this year because while he can anticipate the defense and find spots and seams to exploit, he can’t anticipate his own idiot teammates. Like yesterday with MVS literally letting 2 defenders guard 1 guy by carelessly bringing his own man into the play. Kelce is getting doubled half the time and bad route running is making spacing worse. He’s definitely playing tight and pressing now which is making for his own mistakes piled on the mistakes of others. Chiefs need to smoke some weed or something.
Originally Posted by Fishels:
Going to be a sad sad day whenever Kelce has to hang it up.
It will be for sure but they really need to consider his 14mil cap hit in 24. They can save 10 mil by cutting him. Spend the money on a WR or Dt to help replace Jones. Time to build a roster with fresh meat that is hungry for a ring. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Red Dawg:
It will be for sure but they really need to consider his 14mil cap hit in 24. They can save 10 mil by cutting him. Spend the money on a WR or Dt to help replace Jones. Time to build a roster with fresh meat that is hungry for a ring.
He’s still one of the best tight ends on the planet and worth 14/year. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Wisconsin_Chief:
They’ll never cut him, nor should they. He’s not the old Kelce but he’s still a 90 catch, 1,000 yard TE which is nearly impossible to find.
Give him an offseason to heal up. I think he has a lot of gas left in the tank. [Reply]
Kelce is still a better than average TE, but the explosiveness is going. That should not be surprising at his age.
He will be solid for another year or two, and will be able to get open in the short/intermediate range but we need to be thinking about his replacement
And obviously he needs a true WR1 to be paired with at this stage. [Reply]
Dude still has 90 catches for over 950 yards. The explosiveness isn't quite there anymore, but we still need him more than ever. The fact that he has those kind of numbers playing hobbled and with defenses completely basing their game plan around stopping him is incredible.
If he can give us one more similar year next season when we actually have some WRs to help him out, he can go out on top. I hope that's what he chooses. [Reply]
