Chiefs
A year ago, Chiefs TE Travis Kelce won the Super Bowl — and yet somehow that wasn’t the peak but just a stop along a shooting star arc that kept climbing throughout 2023. Kelce helped build one of the most popular sports podcasts in the world, hosted Saturday Night Live and is currently dating pop star Taylor Swift. Oh yeah, and the Chiefs are in the Super Bowl again. Despite all of that, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes said he’s been impressed by how Kelce has remained the same person.
“It’s been cool to watch for me,” Mahomes said via the Athletic’s Nate Taylor. “Obviously, he has all that attention, but he’s just been himself the whole time. He still will walk through the stadium and treat every single person like they’re his best friend.”
“He wants to take every single rep (in practice),” Mahomes added. “He wants to be the one working the hardest. It raises everybody’s standard — the standard of how you practice, the standards of how you prepare because you know that guy that has done it at the top level wants to continue to do it every single day. At the same time, he has a great time doing it. It shows you that you can work extremely hard and still have fun coming to work.”
This year hasn’t been without adversity, however. Kelce missed the first game of the season after hurting his knee in practice and by the end of the season it was apparent injuries were taking their toll. He missed having 1,000 yards in a season for the first time since 2015 and scored just five touchdowns.
“You could just see his body,” Mahomes said. “It wasn’t moving in the way that it always moves. There were times throughout the season where we had to take him out. He didn’t want to, but we had to get him out to let his body heal.”
Kelce could have played in the final game of the season to take a stab at getting the last 16 yards he needed to keep his streak alive, but he told the coaching staff the best move was to rest up to be fresh for the playoffs. There has been plenty of speculation about whether the 34-year-old Kelce is close to retirement — Kelce has heard it, too, joking with reporters after Week 18 he was “just trying to not be washed” when he sat out — but the playoffs have silenced a lot of those murmurs. Kelce has 23 catches for 262 yards and three touchdowns in the playoffs so far.
“The way Travis is playing right now, I hope he never retires,” Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said. “He’s at his best right now during the playoffs. But all NFL careers, at some point, have an end, but he’s going to have a very bright future once he steps away. But I hope it’s several years down the road.”
Texans
Texans QB C.J. Stroud said he spent a lot of time with his teammates off the field in order to build trust quickly with them.
“I came in with a mindset that ‘Yeah, I want to be a leader on the team, I want to be a captain, I want to do all this leadership stuff – but I want to earn it,’” Stroud said, via Texans Wire. “Honestly, my first step was to build trust. How can I build trust with my guys? How can I spend more time with them and let them know this isn’t for fake, I’m not just trying to be a leader, I really want to be brothers, because the closest teams I’ve been on have been the best teams. We did a whole bunch of cool stuff. We all had a lot in common hat we didn’t know. We all come from different demographics. Like (tight end) Dalton Schultz being from Utah, he’s different than (receiver) Nico Collins being from Birmingham, Alabama. That time let us know we’re going to figure this stuff out.”
Titans
Titans QB Will Levis admitted it caught him off guard when owner Amy Adams Strunk decided to fire HC Mike Vrabel. But it served as the first lesson of what life in the NFL can be like. He added it was gratifying to be one of the reasons Strunk cited that she was so optimistic about the future.
“It is a business, and all these decisions are made each and every year,” Levis said via Jim Wyatt of the team website. “It was surprising, and there was that limbo period of: What is going to happen with everyone else once we hired somebody? It was definitely a little uncomfortable, because we have no say in all of it. We all loved playing for coach Vrabes, but we all know Miss Amy and the front office, and the organization, has a plan for us.
“I know I am part of the plan, and for her to think of me and include me in it is really special and makes me want to work even harder.”
Levis added he’s jazzed about new HC Brian Callahan and his history working with notable quarterbacks like Peyton Manning, Matthew Stafford and Derek Carr.
“He has been able to work with a great amount of quarterbacks,” Levis said, “and it gets you excited when you see the track record and you see the stats and you start watching the film of how he is able to run an offense and do it really well at a high level efficiently. So, I am excited to work for him and hopefully be that next guy that people mention of guys he’s had under his belt.”
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