Travis Kelce off to slow start in 2024: Explaining tight end’s lack of involvement in Chiefs’ passing attack

Through the first two weeks of the season, Travis Kelce has been relatively uninvolved in the Kansas City Chiefs offense. 

Kelce has just four catches for 39 yards on seven targets so far this season, and in Week 2 had his first game with one catch or fewer since 2018. (He did also have a long catch negated by penalty.) The last time the future Hall of Famer had three or fewer catches in back-to-back games came in 2021, but he at least totaled 12 targets in those two contests — one of which was a 48-9 win where he sat out much of the fourth quarter. 

It’s early, obviously, but Kelce’s two catches and 19.5 yards per game, 57.1% catch rate, 9.8 yards per reception, 5.6 yards per target and 42.9% success rate would all obviously mark career lows if sustained through the rest of the season.

Given his massive role in the Chiefs offense over the last decade-plus, it’s worth examining what exactly has happened so far, and what we might expect to happen over the rest of the year. 

One thing that’s interesting to note is that Kelce has played 89% and 91% of Kansas City’s offensive snaps in the first two games of the season. By way of perspective, consider that he didn’t top an 80% snap rate until Week 8 of last season, hit 80% in back-to-back weeks only in Weeks 13 and 14, and then 16 and 17, and only topped 90% in Week 11 against the Eagles. How much of this is due to the fact that the Chiefs have been playing on a long break in each of their first two games, I suppose we’ll find out as they get into a more regular rest schedule. 

Given those snap rates, though, you would expect Kelce to be way more involved in the proceedings than he has been. But Kelce has been targeted on only seven of his 53 routes, according to Tru Media. That 13.2% targets-per-route-run rate would be by far the lowest of his career. In fact, he’s never even been below 21.7% in any of his previous 10 seasons. So, what’s behind that low target rate? 

We have to start with his lack of involvement in the designed portion of the passing game. Kelce has been on the field for 12 screen passes this season, but none of them has gone to him. Consider that last year, he was on the field for 75 screens, and 16 of them were thrown his way. In other words, he was the intended target on 21.3% of the screens for which he was on the field. In 2022, he was thrown 14 of 62 screens. That’s 22.6%. You get the idea. Kelce just has not been part of the screen game so far this season in the same way he has been in the recent past. 

But it’s also not just about the screens. There have been eight other designed target plays (run-pass options, rub routes, jet sweeps, swing passes) on Kelce’s remaining 43 routes, only two of which have been intended for Kelce and one of which got blown up because the rub route that was supposed to get him open got blown up by the defensive back and Patrick Mahomes had to scramble instead. (He was also even more wide open than Wanya Morris on the tackle-eligible play that resulted in Morris’ touchdown catch. Mahomes threw it to Morris because it’s much cooler to get the tackle a touchdown, obviously.) He’s also been asked to chip-release on four routes, only one of which resulted in a target. 

Some of why Kelce has been targeted less often is the fact that there is finally a wide receiver, for the first time since the Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill, who is worthy of being a top option for Mahomes. Once Rashee Rice entered the starting lineup on a full-time basis toward the end of last season, he exploded with 43 catches for 518 yards and three touchdowns across a six-game span, then picked up 26 grabs for 262 yards and a score in Kansas City’s four playoff games. 

He’s kept right on trucking this season, with seven catches for 103 yards in the season opener and five grabs for 75 yards and a touchdown in Week 2. He’s been the intended target on 15 of Mahomes’ 53 pass attempts — a 28.3% target share that is higher than any Kelce has posted in his career. Rice is also sixth in the NFL with a 3.56 yards per route run average, via Tru Media, out of the 181 players who have run 25 routes or more. His emergence makes for a much different situation in the passing game than the one the Chiefs have had over the last two years. 

Beyond the relative lack of targets compared with what he’s done in the past, there’s also the issue of what has happened when Kelce has gotten the ball. He and Mahomes have connected on just one of their patented scramble-drill passes so far this season. It resulted in a big gain (23 yards), but that one play also accounts for 59% of his total yardage this season. Even if you added the catch negated by penalty, the 23-yarder would still account for nearly 30% of his yardage total. Kelce hasn’t made much hay after the catch on his few receptions, with just 2.5 yards after catch per reception. That’s less than half of both his career average (5.8) and his mark from last year, when he played injured for much of the season (2.5). 

Obviously, these numbers are all subject to small sample size caveats. Kelce could easily have a blow-up game against the Falcons on Sunday night, even though Atlanta has allowed just 98 receiving yards to tight ends through two games. We know that Mahomes and Kelce have a mind meld unlike any other in the NFL, and we know that Andy Reid loves nothing more than getting Kelce involved in creative ways when the Chiefs get near the end zone. Given that Kelce is now just a few weeks away from turning 35 years old, though, it’s worth wondering if this is perhaps the first time we’re seeing him as a complementary passing-game target, instead of a focal point.