Travis Kelce Avoided Major Knee Injury, Status For Week 1 Uncertain

Update:

Ian Rapoport reports Chiefs TE Travis Kelce appears to have avoided a major knee injury after hyperextending it at practice Tuesday. 

Rapoport says the team will wait for the swelling in his knee to go down before evaluating further. At minimum, it seems like Kelce will be hard-pressed to play in Week 1 against the Lions. 

Chiefs HC Andy Reid announced on Tuesday that TE Travis Kelce hyperextended his knee at practice and it’s not clear if he’ll be able to play Thursday, per Nate Taylor.

That would obviously be a massive loss for the Chiefs to be without Kelce for any period of time, as he’s their best offensive skill player. 

Kansas City will play the Lions in the NFL’s kickoff game on Thursday. 

Kelce, 33, is a former third-round pick of the Chiefs out of Cincinnati back in 2013. He was entering the final year of his four-year, $3.126 million rookie contract and set to make a base salary of $675,000 for the 2016 season when he signed a six-year, $46.8 million contract extension. 

He signed another four-year, $57.25 million extension in 2020. Kelce is due base salaries of $11.25 million and $12 million over the next two seasons. 

In 2022, Kelce appeared in all 17 games for the Chiefs and recorded 110 receptions on 152 targets for 1,338 yards and 12 touchdowns.

We’ll have more on Kelce’s injury as the news is available.