It’s all coming together, isn’t it?

The Kansas City Chiefs’ offense feels right again. The offensive line has coalesced. Among the wide receivers, Xavier Worthy is finding his groove. Hollywood Brown is carving out a role. Tyquan Thornton’s vertical ability has forced opposing defenses to respect Kansas City’s deep passing game for the first time in three years. And running back Isiah Pacheco appears to be rounding into form.

All of these players have been crucial to the offense’s success. But let’s not overlook an old reliable who is returning to form.

Has anyone else noticed Travis Kelce looks awfully spry this season?

Now 36 years old, the future first-ballot Hall of Fame tight end is looking as efficient as ever — and the Chiefs’ offense is thriving because of it.

Kelce led Kansas City with six receptions for 78 yards during Sunday night’s 30-17 win over the Detroit Lions. Three of those catches gained at least 15 yards. That might not sound like much, but it’s a far cry from last season, when Kelce didn’t have a single game with at least three receptions of 15 or more yards. He had four such games in 2023 — and five in 2022.

It’s not that Kelce was bad last year. He just wasn’t his usual explosive self. While it felt like an outlier season, there was no guarantee it would stay that way.

So coming into this season, there were legitimate questions about Kelce. Chiefs among them was his age. According to Pro Football Reference, Tony Gonzalez is the only NFL tight end at least 36 years old to record more than 600 receiving yards in a season.

And yet… here’s Kelce — doing it again.

Travis Kelce through 6 games
during the Patrick Mahomes era

Year Rec Yds Catch% Yds/Tgt Success
Rate
2025 28 321 75.7% 8.7 73%
2024 28 245 77.8% 6.8 64%
2023 48 525 81.4% 6.9 66%
2022 41 455 78.8% 8.8 71%
2021 38 468 71.7% 8.8 66%
2020 37 470 69.8% 8.9 62%
2019 32 497 65.3% 10.1 59%
2018 33 468 60.0% 8.5 55%

He’s now on pace to record 80 receptions, more than 900 receiving yards and six touchdowns in 2025.

Gonzalez was the last pass-catcher of any kind to produce at least 900 yards at age 36 or older. Over the last 20 years, only three others have done it: Terrell Owens (2010), Joey Galloway (2007) and Jimmy Smith (2005).

I’m not surprised. I had faith that if he returned this season, Kelce would keep producing. Still, it’s been rewarding to watch. He will go down as one of my all-time favorite Chiefs — and I’m certainly not alone in that.

His story is as unique as they come: the hot-headed kid who called out refs and made that hand gesture on national TV has become one of the team’s leaders — and one of the league’s most respected players.

The work he’s done in the community has also been important. The attention and energy he’s brought to the city are impossible to quantify. His hometown may be Cleveland, but he’ll forever be an honorary Kansas Citian.

So to watch him do this at such an advanced football age — forgive me if I’m getting a bit emotional — is remarkable. And it’s been fun as hell to watch.

Kelce isn’t just putting up good numbers for his age, though. He’s legitimately been one of the most efficient pass catchers in the NFL this season.

To measure that, we can use success rate. That is the percentage of plays that gain at least 40% of the required yards on first down, 60% on second down or 100% on third or fourth down. It measures how often a player helps keep an offense “ahead of the sticks.”

With a 2025 success rate of 73%, Kelce remains elite.

The only NFL pass-catcher with a higher success rate on 30 or more targets is Puka Nacua (74%). The only other tight ends at 65% or above (with at least 20 targets) are Tucker Kraft (72%), Dalton Kincaid and Sam LaPorta (67%). All three of those tight ends are more than a decade younger than Kelce.

And as always, most of his production is coming after the catch.

His 8.7 yards per target align with his average from 2017–2023 (8.8), but his average depth of target has plummeted to 4.8 yards. It was 6.6 last year, 6.8 in 2023, 7.3 in 2022, 7.2 in 2021, 8.7 in 2020, and 9.3 in 2019.

He’s made up for those shorter targets by catching nearly everything thrown his way and adding serious yardage after the catch. This season, Kelce is averaging 6.5 yards after catch per reception. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, that puts Kelce among the league’s top 15 pass catchers. That’s a huge jump from 3.8 yards after catch per reception a year ago.

It all adds up to this: through six games, Kelce now has second-highest success rate of his career.

He will never be what he once was — because nobody ever is. But if this turns out to be the final chapter for the player I consider to be the greatest tight end in history, he’s going out on very good terms.

He’s still the engine that keeps this train running — and it’s just now getting rolling.