Travis Kelce is having too much fun to retire – at least not just yet.

The superstar tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs has done it all. Three Super Bowl wins (so far), 10 straight Pro Bowl selections, four first-team All-Pro selections. That on-the-field success has parlayed into a lucrative podcasting gig, acting jobs, endorsements and more. Oh, and don’t forget that he’s currently dating one of the most famous women in the world.

Throughout this push for an unprecedented three-peat of Super Bowl championships, Kelce has alluded many times to being toward the end of his career and savoring the moment just a bit more. He’s about to finish his 12th NFL season, most of them going deep into January and February. That’s a lot of mileage for any football player, let alone someone who has so often been the crux of his team’s offensive attack.

If the Chiefs win on Sunday and pull off what’s never been done before, the 35-year-old Kelce will be facing a question that faces every all-conquering athlete at some point: What is left to do?

For Kelce, it’s a simple answer: Play the game.

“Hopefully still playing football,” Kelce said Monday when asked where he plans to be in three years. “I love doing this, I love coming to work every day and I feel like I still have a lot of good football left in me, but we’ll see what happens.”

Sunday’s showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles is a stage that has become very familiar for Kelce during his career. Super Bowl LIX will mark his fifth title appearance in 12 seasons in the league. And while time has slowed down the 6-foot-5, 250-pound University of Cincinnati alum, he’s all too ready to produce in the sport’s biggest game.

Even coming off a relatively down year – most tight ends would covet a season with 97 catches for 823 yards and three touchdowns, such are the standards Kelce has set for himself – the longtime Chief is showing up when it matters most.

His game against the Houston Texans in the divisional round – seven catches for 117 yards and a touchdown – was the kind of classic Kelce game that Kansas City fans have come to expect in big moments. In his career, Kelce has 174 catches – the most playoff catches in NFL history – for more than 2,000 yards and 20 touchdowns in his 24 playoff games, cementing himself as one of the best big-game players of the last decade.

It’s all led him to a space rarely occupied by the players that legendary college football announcer Keith Jackson lovingly referred to as “The Big Uglies.” He’s now the team’s most recognizable face, mostly thanks to that aforementioned relationship with Taylor Swift. He’s sure to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame – about an hour’s drive south of his hometown of Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

Whenever the time comes, Kelce has already accomplished what he wanted to do in this game – even if those goals have evolved during his career.

“Early on in my career, I really wanted to be known as the greatest to ever do it, man. I think that that motivation has changed to just, you know, create memories, create a lasting impression on the communities that I’m in, and change the game from where it was when I got in to where it is when I leave,” Kelce told reporters on Monday.

“And I think that the biggest thing is, you know, I’ve done all those things. I’ve made an impact in Kansas City. I’ve transitioned this game into getting the tight end the ball a lot more. And on top of that, I’ve had a lot of fun doing it, and I think that’s going to be something I can really hang my hat on.”

Leaving Bourbon Street behind

Super Bowl LIX could be a particularly poignant place for the likely Hall of Famer to hang up his cleats. In a professional career full of highs, the Big Easy was once the scene of Kelce’s lowest low during his college days.

As he relayed to Vanity Fair in a 2023 interview, Kelce and his Cincinnati Bearcats were set to go up against the Florida Gators in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day 2010. After days of letting the good times roll, Kelce and some of his teammates got called into random drug testing by the NCAA. He tested positive for marijuana and was suspended for a full calendar year, a devastating blow that arguably seems harsh 15 years down the road.

“It was a very, very emotional and meaningful thing that happened to me back in college, and I brought that all myself,” Kelce said Monday about that time in his life. “So, I think it was just me, not living up to my family’s expectations was probably the biggest thing – bringing negativity to them was probably the hardest part for me. Outside of that, I always knew I was gonna find a way to figure things out, and it wasn’t the end of the world for me.”

Kelce alluded to the incident during the on-field celebrations after the AFC championship game, with his mom Donna gently chiding him about not going down to the city’s famous Bourbon Street this time around in footage captured by the Kansas City Star.

“Yeah, I won’t be having as much fun,” Kelce said to Donna Kelce and Swift. “No grenades.”

With that suspension behind him, Kelce turned himself into one of the best tight ends to ever play the game. In the last several seasons, he’s become the favorite target of one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks in Patrick Mahomes and is a key piece of the Chiefs dynasty.

“(Kelce) practices like a pro. He’s been doing it ever since I got there, and it’s just something that has, I believe, kind of gone on to everybody is in the building,” said Noah Gray, another Chiefs tight end. “You know, when you see a leader like that – he’s been in the league for 10 plus years, and he’s still practicing as hard as he does – it makes you want to practice just as hard.”

An important piece to a championship run

The Mahomes-to-Kelce combination is a part of NFL playoff lore at this point, and the stuff of nightmares for defenses.

In his 24-game postseason career, Kelce has gone over 100 receiving yards nine times. He’s caught a touchdown pass in 15 of those games. He’s caught five or more passes 20 times. He’s even got a passing touchdown on his resumé.

It’s hard to imagine Mahomes getting off to the kind of start he’s had in his career without having Kelce as a safety net.

“It’s always just practice, man, it’s those guys – from (Organized Team Activities in the offseason) all the way through training camp and to this point,” Gray said. “I mean, it’s practice, it’s repetition. Those guys have been together for a really long time, so just really all credit to the work that those guys put in all year long.”

It’s a relationship built on a mutual desire to get better and, more than anything, to win.

“We love to go to work, man. We love to come in the building, figure things out and, you know, I think, be accountable for the person next to us,” Kelce said of his relationship with Mahomes. “We’re very selfless in that regard and we have that desire to find a way to figure out the task at hand, whatever that may be – whether it’s in the run game, in the pass game, whatever the defense is. We’re locked in all week to try and figure that out. We share that desire.”

Beyond the on-field statistics is what can’t be seen in the box score. His teammates have made him a team captain for each postseason since 2017 and beneath the everyman demeanor lies one of the fiercest competitors in football.

That intensity raised eyebrows during Super Bowl LVIII when Kelce was seen getting into the face of head coach Andy Reid, screaming at his head coach and bumping into him over his displeasure at not being targeted in the early part of the game. While Reid laughed off the incident and said that Kelce’s passion was appreciated, the tight end recognized after the game that he had stepped over the line – earning a scolding from his brother, retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce.

Football is all about walking the fine line between channeled aggression and over-the-top behavior, and Kelce said at the time that Reid has helped old him into the successful player he’s become.

“Sometimes, those emotions get away from me, man. That’s been the battle of my career, but, everybody else, I don’t give a sh*t what anybody else says,” Kelce said on his “New Heights” podcast.

He added, “I just love playing for the guy, man. And unfortunately, sometimes, my passion comes out where it looks like it’s negativity, but I’m grateful he knows it’s all because I want to win this thing with him more than anything.”

What might be next

Let’s just say that Kelce’s moves toward the entertainment industry have been better received than how they started off almost 10 years ago.

While he’s hosted “Saturday Night Live” and is now the host of “Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity?,” he’s also tried his hand at reality TV with his infamous E! show “Catching Kelce.” It seems as if the scripted world of comedy might be better suited to him now than that dating show nearly 10 years ago.

His manager, Aaron Eanes, told CNN last year that there are plenty of opportunities awaiting Kelce when he’s ready for them.

“We have a lot of other opportunities that keep him excited. So I think ultimately, whenever he decides to stop playing, he’s going to still be plenty busy if he wants to be,” Eanes said.

Actors who have worked with Kelce describe him as eager to learn and a pleasure to be around on set – something that might sound very familiar to his football coaches over his career. That’s ultimately the part of acting that Kelce likes the most.

“It’s really a family atmosphere once you get up there and you understand everybody’s role,” Kelce said of his week hosting SNL. “It’s a lot like coming into the building in KC, in terms of how everybody bounces things off of each other and works together.”

Of course, if he wanted to, Kelce could keep up his weekly podcast with his older brother and be doing just fine through his retirement whenever it comes.

The brothers have been hosting “New Heights” for three years and in August signed a deal worth north of $100 million with Amazon’s podcast studio, Wondery. The show has more than 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube and is the No. 4 sports podcast on Apple Podcasts.

“I know I’ve been setting myself up for other opportunities in my life and that’s always been the goal, knowing that football only lasts for so long,” said Kelce. “You’ve gotta find a way to get into another career into another profession and I’ve been doing that in my off-seasons. But for the most part, I plan to be a Kansas City Chief and playing football.”

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