The Kansas City Chiefs are walking an incredibly fine line when it comes to how to manage the playing time of Travis Kelce. The aging pass catcher has remained an impact player, offering 540 receiving yards and 3 touchdowns this season. Despite that, the Chiefs may need to climb their way back up the standings with reduced contributions from the future Hall of Famer.
If the season ended today, the Chiefs not only wouldn't be hosting games in Arrowhead but would be out of the playoffs completely. That can't be ignored. But keeping a long-term view on the season means keeping Kelce on the bench more. The Chiefs have incredibly winnable games left on the schedule and need to learn to rely on their current pieces. Patrick Mahomes is more than capable of doing the heavy lifting alongside Xavier Worthy and Rashee Rice. While Kelce should still play a role, it needs to be a reduced one, saving the legend's best moments for January.
Protecting Travis Kelce is Crucial to Chiefs Postseason Success
Kelce is 36 years old, and even in this late stage of his career, he plays with incredible energy and physicality. This is vital to Kansas City in the playoffs and helps set an emotional tone. Understanding this, as well as the injury risks that come with Kelce's play style, cutting the veteran's snaps makes sense even with the current standings.
Very winnable games remain against the Titans, Raiders, and Cowboys. Win these three games and you're already at 8 wins, needing only two of the remaining contests against the Chargers, Colts, Texans, and Broncos to feel you have a great shot at getting into the playoffs. It's impossible to believe that this isn't going to happen, even with Kelce in a reduced role. Making it clear that Andy Reid's coaching staff must make adjustments to give the franchise its best chance at making a fourth straight Super Bowl.
For those familiar with Kelce, it won't be easy to sell the move at such a crucial time in the season. But it's a move that needs to be made if the team wants a chance to win a third Super Bowl in the last four years. It would also run counter to what we saw last season, when Kelce went from playing less than 80% of the Chiefs' offensive snaps four times in the first seven games of the season to playing 80-plus for each of the his remaining nine regular season games.
But things are already different in 2025, with a career-low snap share marking his second time in the last three seasons below 80.0%. Previously, he hadn't fallen that low since his first full NFL season in 2014. And when games are proving winnable, the Chiefs are already getting him all the rest they can. Consider the drop in snap share he's seen in wins this year:
Wins | Losses | |
|---|---|---|
Snap Share | 70.8% | 82.9% |
This isn't just skewed by the Raiders blowout when starters rested the fourth quarter, either. His five lowest snap shares of the season came in victories.
Kelce needs to be protected from himself, and this means playing fewer snaps in games that the Chiefs can likely win without his best effort. Saving snaps and energy for the end of the year is the type of difficult decision that must be made when chasing greatness.