Why is Chiefs star Travis Kelce always open? Opposing NFL coaches try to explain

VIC TAFUR, TED NGUYEN AND AARON REISS • FEB. 10, 2023

There is only one question that needs to be asked as we get ready for the Super Bowl on Sunday.

How is Travis Kelce, with all defenses preparing for him, always open?

Yeah, yeah … the Chiefs tight end is too fast for linebackers and too big for defensive backs. But surely, defenses can double-team, chip him at the line of scrimmage or bracket coverage on top of him …

So, why is he seemingly running free downfield every week? Kelce, at 33, set career highs with 110 receptions and 12 touchdowns, and his 1,338 yards were the second-best of his career. He either recorded a first down or touchdown on 13 percent of his routes, also a career-best.

Kelce himself has a simple answer.

“Andy Reid, baby. Big Red,” Kelce said Thursday at his Super Bowl media availability. “He can dial stuff up at the right time, create some things at the right time, and then on top of that everybody’s doing their jobs. It’s not just a me-go-out-thereand-get-open-type play. I’m sure you guys like to think that, but there’s a lot of madness to it, and there’s a lot of guys doing their jobs for the big picture. I’m fortunate that I’m playing here, for sure.”

To try to get a further explanation, we turned to the film and to the analytics and spoke to five NFL defensive coordinators, most of whom have spent portions of their career facing Kelce twice a year in the AFC West. They were granted anonymity in order to freely share information.

“He is extremely athletic and he uses your momentum against you,” said one coach who has served as a head coach and coordinator in the league. “It’s something that the Chiefs have passed on from the Tony Gonzalez days. If you have inside leverage, he breaks the route outside, and if you have outside leverage, he breaks the route inside. And Kelce and (Patrick) Mahomes and have so much continuity and chemistry between them that they know what to adjust to at the same time.”

In the AFC Championship Game win over the Bengals, Kelce was running to the right corner of the end zone before turning to the middle of the end zone to catch a 14-yard touchdown pass from Mahomes.

AFC Championship Game vs. Bengals, 4:23 remaining in the second quarter, fourth-and-1

On this fourth-and-1, Kelce lined up in a stack alignment with another receiver outside of it, one of the tactics the Chiefs use frequently to make it tougher to double-team him. The Bengals’ secondary was still communicating to adjust to Kelce in the formation when they were interrupted by the ball being snapped.

The play call was a rollout toward Kelce, who ran a corner route into the end zone.

The alignment might have caused the secondary to bust its double-team. Kelce was single-covered by safety Jessie Bates. Cornerback Eli Apple only dropped deep late because his initial assignment didn’t release into a route. Bates played Kelce with heavy outside leverage and had the corner route covered. With the route capped, most quarterbacks might move to their next read, but Mahomes kept his vision on Kelce.

Kelce knew he couldn’t win outside, so he started pivoting inside. Mahomes was on the same page and was already in his throwing motion as Kelce was pivoting.

The throw was a back shoulder off a corner route, a rare play that Mahomes and Kelce complete routinely.

“It looks like they are freelancing, but they are not,” one AFC coordinator said.

Kelce is a 6-foot-5, 256-pound former basketball player who uses his big body to separate from defenders at the top of his routes and blocks them out when the ball is approaching like he is positioning for a rebound. At that point, it’s all over, as Kelce can jump and has good hands.

Surely, though, he could not keep that up this season after the Chiefs lost Tyreek Hill to the Dolphins. The speedster stretched the field, taking a lot of defensive attention with him and opening up the middle of the field for Kelce to operate. Kelce — and Mahomes, for that matter — would not be as prolific without Hill. Or at least that was the popular refrain around the league last offseason.

“But they just run the offense through Kelce now,” another AFC coordinator said. “He and Mahomes are using the players around him as chess pieces now.”

That’s where Reid comes in. The Chiefs coach has been drawing guys open since even before he was coaching Sunday’s opponent, the Eagles, in the Super Bowl 18 years ago. Kelce had a career-high 152 targets without Hill this season and his lowest average depth of target (7.13 yards downfield) since Mahomes became the starter.

“They just started playing a different way this season,” the coordinator and former head coach said. “They would kill you with explosive plays in the past, but now they spread guys around. You can’t play two deep anymore. They still get explosive plays, but they go about it a different way. They attack you from inside out and Mahomes can pick you apart. And Kelce sees the game as a quarterback too. He was one in high school.”

The numbers say that Kelce is better against zone coverage than man-to-man. He ranks eighth out of 185 qualified players in yards/route vs. zone (2.45), whereas he is only 26th in yards/route vs. man (2.18).

“He changes his routes as he is reading defenses running down the field,” one of the AFC coordinators said. “He is fluid