To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the Kansas City Chiefs have begun their quest for a three-peat with a record of 3-0 three weeks into the 2024 season after defeating the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday Night Football. Their defense has been stellar, as expected, and Rashee Rice has taken a larger offensive load, also as expected.
What has been surprising about their hot start, though, has been the fact that Travis Kelce, one of the best tight ends of all time, has been mostly invisible. He has eight receptions for 69 yards thus far, and has yet to get into the end zone. Kelce has gone from averaging 65.6 yards per game in what was a down year in 2023, to totaling 69 yards through three weeks. That’s how little he has done.
While a slow start isn’t completely out of the ordinary for Kelce, one of this magnitude absolutely is. When factoring in his age (34) and workload, Chiefs fans are wondering whether they should be genuinely concerned or not.
Patrick Mahomes did his best to calm everyone down with the best possible excuse to explain Kelce’s early-season struggles.
Patrick Mahomes’ excuse to explain Travis Kelce’s early-season struggles should calm Chiefs fans down
“Yeah, it’s crazy because teams still — the respect factor they have for Travis is just unreal,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said after Sunday’s 22-17 victory over the Falcons. “It’s well-deserved, but we’re calling a lot of plays for Travis, and it’s like two or three people are going to him. So, I mean, he understands.”
Knowing the kind of weapon he can be, teams are double and even triple-teaming Kelce, ensuring that he cannot get the ball, according to Mahomes. With that in mind, Mahomes is leaning on others who do not have several defenders guarding them at once, and has, obviously, been great.
One player he has leaned on a ton is second-year wideout Rashee Rice, who had 12 receptions for 110 yards on Sunday alone. Rice has 288 receiving yards three weeks into the season, averaging nearly 100 per contest, and he leads the NFL with 24 receptions.
Rice performing as well as he has will likely get teams to rethink their strategy of only focusing heavily on Kelce, and let’s not forget, there are other weapons here, too. Xavier Worthy has the potential to score a touchdown on any given play with his dynamic speed, and Isiah Pacheco, when healthy, has proven he’s more than capable of manning a backfield.
“I’m going to try to do my best to keep feeding him the ball whenever he’s there, whenever he’s open,” Mahomes said. “But I think the more Rashee makes plays, the more we’re able to run the football, the more we can get [Xavier] Worthy involved, that’s going to open Travis up more.”
If teams want to focus so heavily on Kelce, that’s clearly fine with Mahomes, as he has other targets to turn to. Once teams respect the other options and start to leave Kelce in single coverage, Mahomes plans on feeding his tight end a ton.
All that matters to Mahomes and Kelce at this point is winning. Mahomes force-feeding Kelce when he has two or three defenders on him will not lead to another Super Bowl. For now, he’s finding the open receivers, and is letting the game come to him. Once Kelce receives less attention, Mahomes has no reason to believe that his No. 1 weapon won’t dominate as he did last postseason.
