Three days left in the best Super Bowl city of them all …
• You look at Travis Kelce and see a future Hall of Famer, a burgeoning pop-culture star and the boyfriend of one of the most famous people on the planet, Taylor Swift.
His teammates see something else.
The Kansas City Chiefs see their hardest worker, a program-leading tone-setter and mentor for their next generation. Most of all, they see a guy who could win again on Sunday largely on the strength of what he does the other 364 days of the year.
Because while what the team has gotten on Sundays for the last 12 seasons has been Hall of Fame-worthy, what they get on a daily basis has gone beyond their wildest dreams—to steal a phrase—when they drafted him out of Cincinnati in the third round of the 2013 draft. The Kelce they get, in so many ways, is the antithesis of the flashy guy you see on television, the internet and, now, in gossip columns from coast-to-coast.
“He’s just the ultimate competitor,” says Chiefs tight end coach Tom Melvin, who’s been with Kelce since 2013. “You hear a lot about his outgoing personality. He relishes more in being the leader by example, as opposed to some of the outward stuff is just him being him—I’m not going to be a leader because I’m dancing before the play. I'm going to be a leader because I’m running full speed and I’m setting up my teammate to be successful.
“That’s more of what he's into.”
It was, to be sure, very apparent in training camp this summer.
I got to Missouri nearly three weeks in, closing in on the Chiefs’ first preseason game and well into the dog days. I asked coaches and staffers, like I always do, for themes or developments from camp. What came back over and over—and I detailed this is my camp takeaways—was what an ironman Kelce was. How even after getting beat up and worn down over the years, he didn’t take a single day off, or dog a single rep.
“Coach [Andy] Reid keeps me accountable on that aspect,” Kelce said Thursday. “He’s got the old-school mentality, old-school football approach where you’re going to put the work in. You’re going to bring your lunch pail to work every single day and grind it out. That’s how you find real answers. Practicing 100 MPH is the only way you find that timing with the quarterbacks, you find that feel for the defenses.
“As an offense, there’s no better reps that you can get than full-speed reps.”
So Kelce goes full throttle all the time, and his coaches are the ones who need to manage the workload—and give him a blow when he needs one—because he won’t do it for himself.
That, in turn, creates an implicit pressure on everyone else, and removes any excuses younger players may have not to submit to the demands that Reid’s program puts on them. If they see their 35-year-old star teammate doing so, then they don’t have much choice other than to try to keep up. And, really, it starts with Kelce’s love for the game, with the aforementioned tone-setting being a byproduct of it.
“Credit to him,” All-Pro guard/tackle Joe Thuney said. “He loves being out there. He’s always out there. I have no memory of him ever missing anything. It’s remarkable how elite of a level he’s been able to play over such a long period of time. He puts in the work day in and day out of practice. We all see it. He loves the run blocking drills as much as anything. He’s all in on everything. It’s really cool to see, especially from a man with a legendary career.”
And as he passes down the example of how to work, he also is an open book to his younger teammates. In fact, when Noah Gray was drafted in the fifth round in 2021 to, potentially, eventually take Kelce’s job, the then-rookie found, “a guy that didn’t care. It was, I’m going to do whatever it takes to win. If you’re on this team, you’re here to help us win and that’s all that matters.”
It’s added up to a lot of wins. Beyond that, it’s added up to a heck of a legacy. On Sunday, it could add up to a fourth Super Bowl title. It’s also added up to a lot of teammates who’ve seen his example, and run with it, alongside Kelce, to the winners’ circle, over and over.
“It humbles you every day,” said receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who arrived in October. “It gives people a vision for where you want to be.”
Which is, and always has been, right where Kelce is.
• Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio is 66, Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo is 65, and the two are arguably the best defensive coordinators in football. Both having gotten units with different teams, and different strengths and weaknesses, to the top of the league over the years.
So I figured I’d ask both on Thursday about one another. And it turns out that, yes, the two guys who run very different schemes do keep an eye on what the other is doing.
“I will always, every offseason, take a handful of teams and study them very thoroughly to see if there’s anything that we can incorporate to our defense,” Fangio said. “The way we play, we try to evolve to [whichever] way our team plays the best.”
In particular, Fangio said he really respects how Spagnuolo’s defenses pressure, how the players seem to have a firm understanding of the scheme’s complexities, and how, when you drill it down, the execution level is at an exceptionally high level even with the mental burden that those complexities can put on a player.
As for Spagnuolo’s thoughts on Fangio’s defense, he joked to me, “For sure I’ve looked at Vic’s defense—this is a beg-borrow-and-steal business, we steal from everybody.” And he said where he really loves Fangio’s defense is in its red-zone concepts, and its foundation in strong fundamentals.
• I asked Saquon Barkley on Thursday if his vision for becoming an Eagle was topped by the reality of this year. “A little bit,” he said. “I can’t lie.” And as for where things have been even better than he expected, he didn’t mince words.
“I was coming in knowing I was playing behind a really good offensive line,” Barkley said. “I didn’t know I was gonna be playing behind the best offensive line in the league, and one of the best offensive lines of all-time.”
• We’ve written a bunch about the power of Joe Burrow’s words, as they relate to the Bengals resolving a handful of big-ticket contract negotiations this offseason.
I can bring some good news on that front today. My understanding is that already, very early in the offseason, the team has been aggressive in approaching the agents of some of their high-profile guys in an effort to try and get in front of their simmering contract issues. That doesn’t guarantee anything, of course, but it’s a start. And for what it’s worth, in talking with FS1 on Thursday, Burrow name-checked four teammates needing deals.
“We have the cap space to get it done,” Burrow said. “I want to make it happen. Everybody involved Trey [Hendrickson], Tee [Higgins], Ja'Marr [Chase], Mike G. [Gesicki], we all want to stay together. When you have guys that are motivated like that, I think you can get those things done.”
Burrow also added that he’d be willing to rework his deal to keep the band together.
• Grant Udinski’s departure from Minnesota is a blow for the Vikings. He grew into a role where he became Kevin O’Connell’s right-hand man and got new titles every year he was there in an effort to keep him in the Twin Cities. Conversely, if he’s as good as his reputation in Minnesota would suggest, the Jaguars got a heck of a new offensive coordinator.
The biggest question he’ll have to answer working for first-year head coach Liam Coen will relate to his ability to run a room. Though he was important in Minnesota, he never had a room of his own to lead, spending most of his time in a QB room where Josh McCown was the man out front. So that’ll be an adjustment. But his football IQ is at the point where one old co-worker told me if it doesn’t work, “it won’t be because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Good get by Coen.
• The Tom Brady broadcast/team owner entanglements grew this week with the Chiefs and Eagles welcoming him into production meetings. My sense is not everyone was on board with the idea, given that he went from being a passive presence with the Raiders over his first few weeks of ownership to a far more visible part of the team in helping to run their searches for a head coach and general manager.
If Brady’s back with Fox in 2025, I’d assume this is a subject that’ll be discussed again at the owners meeting in March.
• I paid attention to Kelly Stafford’s words on her husband Matthew’s future in Los Angeles. There’s a lot of work the Rams have to do to get Stafford back in the fold for 2025, as we covered in Wednesday’s notes. And if I’m a team like the Steelers, I’m at least calling the Rams and asking that they keep me posted.
• It’s worth mentioning here—the Chiefs had grass laid down over the turf at Tulane, so the team wouldn’t have to practice on the fake stuff this week. If there’s no difference, as the league claims, why would it go to so much trouble to accommodate Kansas City on that request that week? For that matter, why would the Chiefs feel that strongly about it? Especially when the game this week they’re preparing for is on turf?
I’m just asking questions.
• RIP, Virginia Halas McCaskey. The daughter of George “Papa Bear” Halas lived a pretty full life, and was a real trailblazer. Here’s hoping her loved ones can find peace in her memory.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Despite All the Fame and Success, Travis Kelce Still Leads Chiefs by Example.
