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]
NO ONE on this forum had TE as a position of need. Yet now that we've spend our 2nd highest pick on one, people are now rationalizing it like we needed one. :-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by jspchief:
Yeah, I dunno. How many people were thinking this team was in need of a TE? Limited number of early picks. Ugh. Not a fan.
And yet we were. Moeaki is always hurt, and Fasano scares nobody. [Reply]
Ok,the experts are compare this guy to Gronkowski, and he may very well be that good. However, KC has the best TE in the history of the NFL for the majority of his career. And KC still lost every playoff game with said TE. Not only that, it took the best TE in the history of the NFL his entire career to even win a playoff game.
Toss into this that KC signed a stop gap solution at TE.
So, please tell me why this is such a great move with holes at DL, ILB, S, and still a smoking crater at QB?
Originally Posted by buddha:
And yet we were. Moeaki is always hurt, and Fasano scares nobody.
Moeaki was hurt once in his career. Other than that one injury which happened to Charles and Berry as well, he's played in 15 games each of his other 2 seasons. [Reply]
