Travis Kelce is going to give it one more go in 2025, but should he? He is in the top five of all-time in every major TE statistic. He’s got more Pro Bowls and All-Pros than he can count on his fingers, three Super Bowl titles, and a world-famous pop icon girlfriend to come home to. Does he really need to push for that 4th title?
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He says he does, for a few reasons. One is that the 40-22 loss—which was a much bigger blowout than the score would indicate, the Chiefs were down 40-6 at one point—in Super Bowl 59 left such a bitter taste in his mouth that he has to wash it out with another campaign. He also talked about how he felt he let his teammates down in that game and wants to make it up to them by “possibly” playing at a higher level in 2025.
It certainly seems as though Travis Kelce is trying to maneuver himself so that he can have the Super Bowl win send-off he thought he was going to get at Super Bowl 59 before his dream turned to ashes in his mouth. NBC’s Mike Florio believes he might shoot himself in the foot because he could finish the 2025 season a lot worse than the runner-up at the Super Bowl.
“You can’t engineer your exit. There’s a chance that next year’s exit is going to be worse, not better. Not many guys get to say I went out with a Super Bowl game… There’s a good chance that Travis Kelce is gonna exit after this year with something far less than a Super Bowl loss.”
Florio used the example of the NFL’s greatest of all time, Tom Brady, who won a Super Bowl in 2020 but pushed on for two more years. Eventually, Brady went into retirement following an embarrassing 31-14 Wild Card loss to the Cowboys in 2022. If Kelce’s not careful, the same thing could happen to him.
“I hope he doesn’t come back thinking that, ‘Hey we’ll just go back to the Super Bowl and win it next year.’ No one is guaranteed the storybook finish, because it rarely happens. Even Tom Brady, whose ex-wife tried after three different Super Bowl wins, to pull him off the stage for good. They were one-and-done against the Cowboys, right? Wasn’t that how it went for Brady? A Wild Card loss at home to the Cowboys? That’s it, the last shot out of the Roman candle.”
We understand where Florio’s coming from here, but even if it was a Super Bowl, having your last game be a rout like the one Kelce and the Chiefs suffered against the Philadelphia Eagles is a hard pill to swallow. No matter who you are.
And it’s not like it’s impossible to ride off into the sunset. It has happened on multiple occasions for some pretty legendary NFL players. There was John Elway, who won back-to-back Super Bowls before retiring following the second. There was Peyton Manning, who was carried to his second Super Bowl victory in 2015 before retiring. Michael Strahan, Ray Lewis, and Andrew Whitworth are just a few other recent examples.
Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame running back Jerome Bettis had the Cinderella story of Cinderella stories in 2005. After contemplating retirement following a heartbreaking end to a 15-1 season in 2004, he was convinced to return in 2005. Pittsburgh rattled off five straight wins to sneak into the playoffs and proceeded to become the first No. 6 seed ever to win a Super Bowl. Not only that, but the Super Bowl was played in Bettis’ hometown of Detroit, where he was able to retire on the podium.
However, there is another side to that story that applies here. While Bettis timed up his exit about as perfectly as you could hope for, his head coach, Bill Cowher, didn’t do the same. Instead of retiring after 14 years at the helm following that Super Bowl XL triumph, Cowher stayed on for one more year. He was disappointed by an 8-8 record as the Steelers missed the postseason.
So, by returning in 2025, is Travis Kelce setting himself up for a Hollywood finish like Bettis? Or a disappointing encore like Cowher? Only time will tell.
