One day in the semi-near future, Travis Kelce will receive a gold jacket and forever be immortalized in Canton.
That's for then, though. Kelce still has plenty of good football left in him, and the Chiefs are paying him accordingly, agreeing to a new two-year deal worth $34.25 million that will make Kelce the highest-paid tight end in the league on an annual basis, NFL Network Insiders Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero reported. The team has since announced the signing.
Kelce is still under contract through 2025 and effectively received a $4 million raise in 2024, Pelissero reported. He is now averaging $17.125 million per season, which is tops among tight ends.
Kelce's career has been nothing if not remarkably consistent. The Cincinnati product racked up seven straight seasons of 1,000-plus receiving yards from 2016-2022, falling just shy of making it eight straight campaigns in 2023 with 93 catches for 984 yards and five touchdowns in a Chiefs offense that needed the entire regular season to find its footing before making another run to a Super Bowl triumph.
Over his 11 NFL seasons, Kelce has caught 907 passes for 11,328 yards and 74 touchdowns, earning nine Pro Bowl nods and four first-team All-Pro selections. He was named a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's All-Decade Team for the 2010s, and at 34 years old, he remains one of the most dangerous players at the position in the NFL.
Kelce didn't need Patrick Mahomes to thrive, but since the Texas Tech standout ascended into superstardom, Kelce has benefitted exponentially. Mahomes took over as Kansas City's starting quarterback in 2018, kicking off an era of relative dominance in which the Chiefs have won three Super Bowls and appeared in every AFC Championship Game from 2018-2023. In that span, Kelce has caught 600 passes for 7,428 yards and 52 touchdowns in the regular season, and added 243 receptions for 1,609 yards and 18 touchdowns in the postseason.
In the 2023 playoffs, Kelce became a key lifeline for Mahomes in Kansas City's upset win over the top-seeded Ravens in Baltimore, catching 11 passes for 116 yards and a touchdown to help the Chiefs take down the Ravens and return to the Super Bowl for a second-straight season. Despite not scoring in Super Bowl LVIII, Kelce played an important role in that game, too, catching nine passes for 93 yards in the overtime triumph.
Kelce will go down as one of the greatest to ever play the position by the time he retires, and eventually, he'll have a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. With his new contract, Kelce will make Hall of Fame money on his way to Canton.
