Chiefs’ Kelce on slow start: ‘I put that on me’

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Travis Kelce blames the slow start to his season on himself.

“I put that on me,” Kelce said on the weekly “New Heights” podcast he co-hosts with brother Jason. “I didn’t play my best, and it spreads if you don’t fix it and I’ve got to get that thing fixed.”

Kelce has four catches for 39 yards in the Kansas City Chiefs‘ first two games of the season.

Kelce, who turns 35 next month, is one of the most prolific pass-catching tight ends in NFL history. His streak of consecutive 1,000-yard seasons was ended at seven last year only when he sat out the final regular-season game after the Chiefs had clinched their playoff seed.

He said many factors have to go right for any receiver to catch a large number of passes.

“If you want to catch the football, (1) it has to be the right play, (2) it has to be the right coverage, and (3) it has to be everybody doing their job up front and on the back end in terms of running their routes. …

“For whatever reason, for these past two games, it hasn’t gone that way for me. That’s football.”

In the past, Kelce has shown his annoyance when he hasn’t been catching many passes. During Super Bowl LVIII in February, for instance, an exasperated Kelce screamed at coach Andy Reid on the sideline and almost knocked him off his feet when he bumped into him.

Kelce said that wouldn’t happen this time.

“I’m not going to sit here and get frustrated about it,” Kelce said. “I used to get really, really pissed off and almost lose my cool a lot of the time for not having that success, knowing that I demand that out of myself. I just like to play the game to such a high level that it’s tough for me to deal with being mediocre or having stats that represent that.

“Moving forward, it’s just, ‘How can I be better in those moments? What’s the issue? Am I not getting out into my routes fast enough?’ or whatever the situation may be.”

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