Travis Kelce has high expectations for himself this NFL season.
After a slow start in his first three games, the 34-year-old Kansas City Chiefs tight end started to get his groove back in the team’s 17-10 win over the Los Angeles Chargers on Sept. 29.
Kelce’s 89 yards on Sunday is more than he recorded in the first three games combined, but still the superstar tight end said he wasn’t “great” by his standards while reflecting on the game with his brother, Jason Kelce, on a new episode of New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce.
“A big game is like, I score a touchdown or something,” Travis told his brother on the podcast. “I was accountable this game, I didn’t have any drops, which is what happened in Atlanta to make me feel like I had a bad game,” he continued. “I didn’t have an outstanding game.”
Jason acknowledged that the Chiefs star had been “struggling” in his first three games, and said he knows that the Chiefs are “still trying to click” on offense this season.
Travis Kelce #87 of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Kevin C. Cox/Getty
“Struggling in terms of stats,” Travis corrected, “I was still playing winning football and that’s all that f—ing matters.”
The Chiefs star went on to explain that as long as his team is winning — and Kansas City is, now with a perfect 4-0 record on the season — then everything else is “just noise.”
“Everything outside of the building is just noise,” Travis said. “I helped my team find a way to win and that is all that will ever matter.”
The Grotesquerie actor first addressed his slow start on the podcast just after the second game of the new season, revealing that he used to get “pissed off” when he wasn’t playing to his potential in previous seasons.
“I used to get really, really pissed off and almost lose my cool,” Travis said. “I just like to play the game to such a high level of accountability that it’s just tough for me to deal with being mediocre or having stats that represent that.”
Patrick Mahomes #15 and Travis Kelce #87 of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Kevork Djansezian/Getty
Now in his 12th NFL season, the tight end knows how to keep his cool on and off the field and “stopped caring about stats about four or five years ago,” which helped him be able to “just play free” and develop a “better mentality” around competition.
“It’s just for whatever reason, these past two games, it hasn’t gone that way for me, and that’s football, man. I’m not about to sit here and get frustrated about it,” Travis remarked.
Next, the Chiefs will host the New Orleans Saints at Arrowhead Stadium on Monday, Oct. 7.
