On Tuesday, a day after agreeing to return to the Kansas City Chiefs for a 14th season, tight end Travis Kelce appeared on The Pat McAfee Show.
After months of speculation, the football world finally learned of Kelce’s thought process this week. He confirmed that the decision had already been made, and the Chiefs were kept in the loop. Kelce is excited for another season to play with quarterback Patrick Mahomes under head coach Andy Reid. He is also high on the return of Eric Bieniemy as offensive
coordinator.
“I’m not going to lie,” said Kelce. “It was pretty short and brief. The Chiefs knew where I was the entire time on it. You always need to take a step back. You always need to take a step back and breath, let the emotions of the season settle down, and see where the body is and things like. Man, I’m still in love with this game. I still love going to work, putting on the pads, grinding it out, and just playing the game. I think my best opportunity was playing for the Chiefs yet again and running this thing back with Pat Mahomes and Coach Reid. We’ve got my guy Eric Bieniemy — Coach Bieniemy — back. There’s a lot of pieces in Kansas City that I absolutely love, and I can’t wait to get back in the building with them.”
The Chiefs are coming off a disappointing season in which the franchise missed the playoffs for only the second time in Kelce’s career. In addition to looking up at the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers in the AFC West — two playoff teams in 2025 — the Las Vegas Raiders will undoubtedly be labeled as offseason winners due to a high volume of free agents signed this week.
Kelce says that the Chiefs are taking note of any talk of their run among the league’s best teams being finished.
“We’re seeing what the world’s doing right now,” he observed. “We’re seeing how everyone is reacting. We know we have the nucleus in Kansas City. We’ve got some big hitters in Kansas City, and we’ve got Coach Reid. So, we’re never out of this thing. We know the division is getting pretty competitive across the board, and that’s only going to make it for us to get better throughout the season and be the best team we can be at the end of it. We hear it all, though.”
For the past three seasons, a media circus has followed Kelce because of his relationship to superstar entertainer Taylor Swift — and the two are scheduled to be married this summer. While Kelce has often been private about Swift when talking about football, he opened up to McAfee about how her success motivates him even in the late stages of his career.
“We share the same love for what we do,” declared Kelce. “Fortunately, we’ve had this desire since we were kids in our selective professions. It’s amazing to see her keep going to the table, keep finding new things to write about, keep finding new melodies and things like that — and on top of that, still seeing her have that love and joy in what she does. Of course, that’s motivating. That’s motivating for anybody to see, let alone my fiancé. Knowing that I’m going through something where I’m trying to figure out exactly what the future holds for me, something like that definitely motivates me to say, ‘I’m not done, either.’ I’ve still got some ideas in the back of my mind and some juice to play this game.”
