Travis Kelce is not going to end his NFL career just yet but will leave the Kansas City Chiefs, claims his fellow legendary tight end Rob Gronkowski.
Kelce has spent his whole career with the Chiefs after being drafted in 2013, winning three Super Bowls and establishing himself as one of the best tight ends in the history of the game.
But the 36-year-old’s Chiefs contract expires at the end of the season. Many expect he will use that as the time to bring the curtain down on his career and ride off into the sunset with fiancee Taylor Swift, with next week’s game against Las Vegas Raiders his final NFL appearance.
Not Gronkowski, however. Kelce has enjoyed an impressive individual season with 839 yards to his name and five touchdowns, even while the Chiefs have imploded and failed to make the playoffs.
And that is why Gronkowski thinks Kelce will leave Arrowhead and try his hand with a Super Bowl contender for 2026.
‘I think he’s going to test the market out there and he has to vie for a championship and the Super Bowl if he comes back,’ he said on NFL Sunday.
‘I don’t really see that happening with the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s gonna be a rebuild year, kind of.
‘They may have the potential to do it. But also, he has so many opportunities outside of the game of football. Is his heart in the place of, “Hey, what’s the next venture for me?” or ‘”do I really love the game of football, I need to come back?”‘
Michael Strahan added a word of warning to Kelce if he really is on the brink of quitting the game.
‘You never want to live with regret,’ he said. ‘Everybody talks about opportunities (away from the game) and that’s great but at the end of the day he is a football player.
‘Get it out of your system. You never want to live with regrets and all this things that come after, that’s supplemental.’
Kelce has kept his cards close to his chest about what the future holds, insisting he will reach a decision once the season is over and he has had time to hold talks with Chiefs, as well as his friends and family.
But he has said before that he won’t play for any other team in the NFL than the Chiefs.
Kelce looked on the brink of retiring after the Chiefs lost the Super Bowl to Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans back in February but ultimately decided he didn’t want to quit the game on such a low note.
He may well be thinking the same thing again, with the Chiefs failing altogether to make the postseason.
But Gronkowski is right to say that the team needs a lot of change to compete for a Super Bowl next year, especially given how Patrick Mahomes is recovering from a torn ACL.
So maybe moving on isn’t quite the ominous prospect it might have once seemd to Kelce.
