Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce are showing off some new moves after returning to the field for the Kansas City Chiefs’ second preseason game.
The Chiefs quarterback, 28, and the tight end, 34, joined their teammates to face off against the Detroit Lions on Saturday, Aug. 18, at a home game at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.
During the game, Mahomes appeared to surprise the Lions’ defense by tossing the football behind his back over to Kelce, who caught the ball and earned the team a first down, as seen in a video posted on X(formerly Twitter).
In a video on the Chiefs’ official Instagram account, Mahomes explained how the pass went down — getting in a playful dig at Kelce. “Travis didn’t run the route he was supposed to run, and then it was a kind of a behind-the-back pass, kinda ’cause I was mad,” he joked, later adding, “Out of spite, I threw a behind-the-back pass.”
The pair’s performance comes one week after Kansas City’s loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Aug. 10, in their first preseason game since the Chiefs won their second-consecutive Super Bowl title back in February.
Before concluding their training camp, Mahomes praised Kelce for his performancewhen asked about it ahead of the 2024-2025 NFL season.
“It’s remarkable, honestly,” Mahomes said of his teammate and friend. “I mean, you see him out there every day at practice. He’s working. He’s in there getting the reps. He actually gets mad when they take him out.”
Before returning to Kansas City for the start of the new NFL season, Kelce enjoyed a whirlwind summer — including plenty of quality time with his girlfriend, Taylor Swift, as she performed all over Europe and a long list of side projects outside of football.
On June 23, the NFL player made his official Eras Tour debut with Swift, 34, when he suited up to join the singer onstage during her “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” outfit change — a transition the singer introduced when she first incorporated The Tortured Poets Department album into the tour.
The tight end later revealed on an episode of his podcast, New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce, that Swift initially laughed at the idea before asking him, “Would you seriously be up for doing something like that?”
Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and Kam Saunders at Swift’s Eras Tour show in London on June 23, 2024.
Gareth Cattermole/TAS24/Getty
Kelce said, “I was just like, ‘What? I would love to do that, are you kidding me? I’ve seen the show enough — might as well put me to work here.’ And sure enough, she found the perfect part of the show for me to come in.”
The first look at his character on Ryan Murphy’s new series Grotesquerie — whichpremieres on Sept. 25 on FX — was also released on Aug. 15. Although the NFL star’s appearance is just a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot, Kelce could be seen moving his hands in front of his body in a motion that alludes to some kind of magic involving his character.
Another first look for one of Kelce’s upcoming projects dropped during the Chiefs offseason, when Prime Video released new photos of the athlete hosting the rebooted game show Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? which will premiere its first three episodes on Oct. 16.
According to the show’s official synopsis, each episode will feature “an adult contestant who will rely on a classroom full of celebrities from comedy, screen and sports to help them answer 11 questions on a range of subjects, pulled from elementary curriculum” — introducing a new twist from the original Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? series, which premiered in 2007.
