Travis Kelce isn’t ready to retire from the NFL just yet.
Kelce, the tight end who made his name within the football world as one of the most prolific pass catchers in NFL history before he became globally famous for his engagement to pop superstar Taylor Swift, will return for a 14th season with the Kansas City Chiefs, according to NFL Network, which multiple reports later confirmed. The deal is reportedly worth $12 million, and it can grow to up to $15 million.
Coming off a season when the Chiefs stunningly suffered a losing record for the first time since 2012, Kelce, 36, considered whether he would retire to cap a career with three Super Bowl titles with the Chiefs while also becoming one of the most famous athletes in the world.
Strictly within the realm of football, Kelce is one of the most recognizable athletes in the country’s most popular sport, having racked up 11 selections to the Pro Bowl and the eighth-most catches (1,080) in NFL history. His 13,002 career receiving yards rank 23rd on the all-time list, third-most among tight ends, and he reached the 13,000-yard mark in only 192 games, 40 games fewer than the next best tight end.
Such a career was not predicted when the Chiefs drafted Kelce in the third round in 2013 and he proceeded to spend much of his rookie season injured, appearing in just one game.
By his third season, Kelce had earned the first of his 11 Pro Bowl selections, and by his fourth he had surpassed 1,000 yards and earned the first of his four All-Pro honors.
At the peak of Kansas City's championship runs, as the Chiefs mixed and matched receivers and running backs around star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Kelce was always the team's pass catching mainstay, whose ability to ad lib with Mahomes on the field was often otherworldly and allowed him to excel at finding open space within defenses.
Last season was the first time in his career that Kelce didn’t play in the playoffs, where he has long shined. In five Super Bowls, including wins to cap the 2019, 2022 and 2023 seasons, Kelce has caught 35 passes for 389 yards and two touchdowns. His nine 100-yard games and 178 catches in 25 career playoff games established records that exceeded the marks of even Hall of Fame receiver Jerry Rice.
Kelce's 82 receiving touchdowns tie for 31st all time. From 2016 to 2022, he produced seven straight seasons with at least 1,000 yards receiving. During that stretch, he averaged 8.4 touchdowns every regular season and had a remarkable knack for moving the offense down the field, with more than 70% of his receptions resulting in first downs.
During his last three years, however, Kelce’s touchdowns have nearly halved, his receptions have dropped by eight per season and his first-down rate has dropped 10 percentage points.
In this past season’s final game on Jan. 4, Kelce extended his streak of consecutive games with at least one catch to 191 and joined Tim Brown as the only receivers in NFL history with 75-plus receptions in 10 consecutive seasons. Then Kelce said he would “go through exit meetings and get close to the family and figure things out” about his future.
“Who knows?” Kelce told reporters after the Chiefs’ season-ending loss in Las Vegas on Jan. 4. “Either it hits me quick, or I’ve got to take some time. I think last year was a little bit easier. I think I knew right away I wanted to give this [season] a shot. So we’ll see.”
At the time, teammates were not convinced Kelce was done with football.
“He’ll be back next year,” Chiefs defender Chris Jones said after the regular-season finale.
Kelce entered the offseason as an unrestricted free agent, able to sign with any team. His decision on retirement presumably included factors far beyond football, as he has career options in entertainment, as well. In recent years, his relationship with Swift helped springboard him into mainstream fame. He hosted "Saturday Night Live," appeared in shows and movies and co-hosted the "New Heights" podcast with his brother, former All-Pro lineman Jason, which has become one of the country's most popular podcasts.
Kelce, who also entertained retirement a year ago, said in November that he expected to decide by March, at the dawn of NFL free agency. Less than a week after his final game, he said on a “New Heights” episode that he still loved football and that “it’s a tough thing to navigate, but at the same time, if my body can heal up and rest up and I can feel confident that I can go out there and give it another 18-, 20-, 21-week run, I think I would do it in a heartbeat. So I think right now it’s just finding that answer and seeing how the body feels.”
By late February, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach was calling Kelce "an icon" and saying "hopefully he comes back" at the NFL's scouting combine.
“It’s not your typical, hey, '27-year-old first time in free agency,'" Veach said. "Travis has done everything, he’s accomplished everything, he’s about to get married, he’s got a lot going on. ... You need some sort of deadline [or] timeline, but at the same time, it’s Travis Kelce. So we’re just going to continue to have positive dialogue and see where this thing ends. I think we’re trying to position ourselves that, either way, we have a plan moving forward."
