Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is under the proverbial microscope in a way that few athletes ever are. There are many reasons for this. First of all, Kelce is arguably the best receiving tight end in the long history of the NFL. Second, he's the top weapon on the league's marquee team, the Kansas City Chiefs, who have been to five consecutive AFC Championship games and won two of the last four Super Bowls. And yes, Kelce is also dating Taylor Swift, who is arguably the most successful, popular, and important musician since The Beatles. So when Kelce, a 34-year-old tight end who has taken a beating for nearly a decade and routinely sees double teams from opposing defenses, has a few games in a row below his normal standard of greatness, naturally, it's the fault of Taylor Swift.
(Insert Fart Noise here)
The Chiefs have far greater concerns than the status of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift's relationship, or the possibility that the relationship has become a distraction. Personally, I'd be far more concerned with their entire wide receiver group having a season-long case of the drops, or that Matt Nagy is their offensive coordinator when he shouldn't even be the play-caller of a youth football team. Even though the Chiefs would never, ever be as blunt as I just was, they were blunt enough to deny that the Kelce-Swift relationship has been any sort of distraction, per Diana Russini of The Athletic.
“In fact, I checked in with the Chiefs after Kelce’s bye week trip to Argentina. He flew multiple hours there and back to see her perform in person. When the team was back in the building that Monday, so was Kelce. He wasn’t late or distracted. He was hours early, in fact. So let’s put that, ‘He’s too in love to be good at football' theory to rest.”
I'd go as far as saying the only people who are claiming that this relationship has become a distraction to Travis Kelce are people who either A.) Don't like the Kansas City Chiefs, B.) Don't like Taylor Swift (for any number of possible reasons), or C.) Both. And if you don't fall into any of those three categories, you're probably D.) An “old-school” football fan who longs for the days when dudes were playing through concussions and smoking cigarettes in the locker room at halftime.
When Travis Kelce went five games in a row without a touchdown or a 100-yard game during the 2019 season, nobody panicked or was quick to blame his romantic paramour. Same goes for the three-game stretch Kelce went without a touchdown or a 100-yard game late in the 2021 season. But now when Kelce has a three-game stretch where he has only 16 receptions, 116 yards, and a touchdown, it's Taylor Swift's fault?
Fine, let's play that game. Let's say Taylor Swift has some sort of cosmic control over Travis Kelce's play on the field. Before this three-game “skid,” when Kelce was coming off a two-game stretch where he had his 2nd and 13th most productive games of his career in terms of receiving yardage, when media outlets were “crediting” Swift for Kelce's solid play, how came these very same folks who are currently ripping the relationship to shreds were once recoiling at the idea of Swift being at all responsible for what was happening on the field?
Take a second to let the hypocrisy waft over you.
Everyone needs to Calm Down. No matter how badly you want there to be, there's no Bad Blood between Kelce/Swift and the Chiefs, and I don't have a single doubt in my mind that sometime soon, Kelce will Shake It Off and get out of this perceived slump. My question is … Are You Ready For It?
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