Many people would love to live Travis Kelce’s life right now. He’s a well-known NFL player for the Kansas City Chiefs, who have won the Super Bowl two years in a row. Kelce is everywhere, from TV shows to ads, and he’s dating the biggest pop star in the world.
However, when Kelce thinks back to his younger years, he always dreamed of being like… Josh Allen?
Yes, Kelce always imagined himself playing as a quarterback, just like Allen, the Buffalo Bills quarterback, making plays with both his arm and legs in the NFL. But Kelce didn’t have Allen’s strong arm, so a wise coach moved him to tight end, and now Kelce is one of the best at that position in NFL history.
“Josh is who I used to dream of being like in the NFL,” Kelce said after a practice on Friday, before the Chiefs face the Bills and Allen in an AFC championship game on Sunday night.
“Big, athletic quarterback. Big arm. Being able to be a dual-threat guy,” Kelce continued. “His ability to do everything — you can tell, he really took the bull by the horns and been their leader up front, and channeled that. Guys come in and out of the building and he’s the main guy that makes them go, and I have a lot of respect for that guy.”
Kelce and Allen do have some things in common. Kelce is 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds, a good size for a tight end, and Allen is also 6-5 and weighs about 240 pounds. Both played for colleges that don’t get much attention, Kelce at Cincinnati and Allen at Wyoming. And both have kept their teams at the top of the NFL.
The Chiefs are in the AFC championship game for the seventh year in a row, while the Bills are there for the second time in five years. They are hoping to get back at the Chiefs after losing 38-24 at Arrowhead Stadium in 2021, a game that led Kansas City to a Super Bowl victory.
Although Kelce doesn’t have Allen’s strong arm, he can still throw. In his senior year of high school at Cleveland Heights High School in Ohio, he threw for 1,523 yards and 15 touchdowns, plus ran for 1,016 yards and 10 more touchdowns.
Kelce has even had a few chances to throw the ball in NFL games. In a 2020 game against the Raiders, he threw a 4-yard pass for a first down. The next week, he tried again against Tampa Bay, but the pass was incomplete.
Then there are the times when Kelce makes off-script throws. He’s had several plays where he catches the ball, laterals it to a teammate, and watches them run for more yards. Chiefs coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes don’t always love these risky plays, but they trust Kelce enough to let him try.
“He does that in practice,” Mahomes said with a smile. “It started off as kind of a joke, and now it’s kind of become a thing. As long as he completes it, Coach is going to keep letting him do it. But he knows the consequences if he doesn’t.”
Kelce probably won’t do anything too risky against the Bills, who were number one in the NFL this season for turnover differential. But the Chiefs would love another strong performance like the one Kelce had in the divisional round against Houston.
The 35-year-old Kelce caught seven passes for 117 yards and a touchdown in the Chiefs’ 23-14 win last weekend.
There were some who thought Kelce’s career was almost over after a season that wasn’t up to his usual high standards, despite having 97 catches for 823 yards. Some people said he wasn’t focused on football anymore, that he spent too much time in front of cameras and traveling with his girlfriend, Taylor Swift. They thought he was nearing the end of his career.
Kelce heard all of it, but it didn’t bother him at all.
“I laugh at it,” he said. “It’s fine, man. As long as we’re going out there and winning, that’s all that matters.”
