The Kansas City Chiefs are able to sleep easier at night knowing that their tight end, Travis Kelce, is returning to the field for another season. With many thinking he would hang up the cleats after the franchise’s Super Bowl defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles, but that would not be the case.
Now that Kelce has decided to play in 2025, history could be in the making. Many fans get blinded by the franchise’s success over the recent years and the history they almost made this past February, but what people forget is how accomplished Kelce is in his individual statistics throughout his career.
Going into his 12th season in the National Football League, Kelce has accumulated 12,151 receiving yards in 174 games in his Hall of Fame career. Even if he decided to retire this season, those stats would be enough to enter him into the conversation of greatest tight end of all time. But there’s more story to be written.
Kelce holds the third most receiving yards as a tight end in NFL history behind former Chief Tony Gonzalez and former Las Vegas Raider, Jason Witten. Witten finished his playing career with 13,046 receiving yards, and has been the second ranked tight end in receiving yards since he retired in 2020.
That being said, Chiefs star tight end Kelce is only 895 receiving yards away from tying Witten’s receiving career total, and 896 receiving yards away from passing him for the second position on a historic tight end player list.
Kelce has recorded over 1,000 receiving yards seven times in his career, but hasn’t done so since the 2022 season. The 2022 season was also the last time Kelce participated in a full year with Kansas City. However, 895 receiving yards is not off the table for the veteran tight end.
In 2024, Kelce finished with 823 receiving yards in 16 games played. While Kelce is on the back half of his playing career, holding the second position in NFL history for a tight end sounds like a nice tag to attached to your name at the end of your playing career.
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes has the ability to throw accurately enough to get Kelce to pass Witten, the question is, does Kelce have enough left in the tank to chase it down?
