On Sunday for the 75th of his distinguished career, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end scored a 5-yard touchdown against the Las Vegas Raiders. Kelce broke a tie with Jason Witten to become just the fifth tight end in NFL history to score 75 receiving touchdowns and moved exclusively into fifth place for career touchdowns with the historic TD grab.
Kelce trails No. 4 Jimmy Graham (89 touchdowns) by a significant margin, hence he has a lot of room to grow up the TD ladder. With 116, Antonio Gates is the all-time TE TD leader. Including postseason action, Kelce currently boasts tied fourth all-time with Graham with 94 touchdown catches.
Though it was a historic TD grab for Kelce’s career, it was also a very welcomed score in the here and now since it stopped a 12-game regular-season run free from a touchdown catch. Fairly speaking, Kelce scored three touchdowns during last season’s Chiefs’ Super Bowl postseason run.
TOUCHDOWN TRAVIS HAS ARRIVED pic.twitter.com/MiiuJPHeJD
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) October 27, 2024
Being the tight end with the most 100-yard receiving games (37) and 1,000-yard seasons (seven) already distinguishes the nine-time Pro Bowler and three-time Super Bowl champion.
Starting Sunday with 935 receptions—fourth in NFL history among tight ends—the 35-year-old also had 11,573 yards—fourth. Sunday’s addition to those figures also reflects his climb of the all-time TD list.
If you’re wondering why Taylor Swift is absent in today’s game, it’s because she’ll be in New Orleans, Louisiana performing night three of her Eras tour shows in town! Taylor returned to the Eras tour after a few months off last week during a weekend of three shows in Miami, Fla. She’ll be in Indianapolis, Indiana this coming weekend for three more shows!
The Raiders beat the Chiefs at Arrowhead on Christmas Day last season. It was disastrous performance from Kansas City – Kelce even slammed his helmet to the floor in fury at one stage – but it sparked a resurgence in Andy Reid’s team that took them to Super Bowl glory. Last week, when the Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in a rematch of last season’s Super Bowl, Kelce immediately sent a warning to his teammates as attention turned to the Raiders.
‘That’s every team in the NFL but this rivalry in the AFC West division, that’s always a big game – no matter who we are playing in the division. The Raiders, that is always a tough opponent. ‘It’s about us, it’s about us getting better throughout the year,’ Kelce said. ‘The message (for the 49ers game) was to go out there and play together.
‘There are a lot of doubters with what we can do offensively right now with the guys that we’ve got. We showed everyone we can put up points today. ‘I love every single guy on this team. That’s our mentality – next guy up. Everybody feels their role, they want that opportunity to get out there and show the world that we’ve got everybody we need right here to win a championship.’
‘I think we found out last year that if we don’t have the right mindset going into this game, this team can beat us,’ Kelce said.