Travis Kelce off to slow start in 2024: Explains tight end's lack of involvement in Chiefs' passing attack

Through the first two weeks of the season, Travis Kelce has been relatively uninvolved in the Kansas City Chiefs' offense.

Kelce has just four catches for 39 yards on seven targets so far this season, and in Week 2 he had his first game with one catch or fewer since 2018. (He also had a long catch negated by a penalty.) The last time the future Hall of Famer had three catches or fewer in back-to-back games was 2021, but he at least totaled 12 targets in those two contests, one of which was a 48-9 win in which he sat out much of the fourth quarter.

It's early, obviously, but Kelce's two receptions and 19.5 yards per game, 57.1% catch rate, 9.8 yards per catch, 5.6 yards per target and 42.9% success rate would obviously mark career lows if maintained for the rest of the season.

Given his outsized role in the Chiefs' offense over the past decade and more, it's worth examining what exactly has happened so far and what we might expect to happen for the rest of the year.

Something that's interesting to note is that Kelce has played 89% and 91% of Kansas City's offensive snaps through the first two games of the season. To put that into perspective, consider that he didn't top 80% of snaps until Week 8 of last season, hit 80% in back-to-back weeks only in Weeks 13 and 14, and then 16 and 17, and only topped 90% in Week 11 against the Eagles. I guess we'll find out how much of this is due to the fact that the Chiefs have been playing on an extended rest in each of their first two games when they get on a more regular rest schedule.

Given those throw rates, though, you'd expect Kelce to be far more involved in proceedings than he has been. But Kelce has been the target on just seven of his 53 routes, according to Tru Media. That 13.2% target rate per route run would be by far the lowest of his career. In fact, he's never been below 21.7% in any of his previous 10 seasons. So what's behind that low target rate?

We have to start with his lack of involvement in the designed portion of the passing game. Kelce has been on the field for 12 screen passes this season, but none of them have been to him. Consider that last year, he was on the field for 75 screen passes, and 16 of them were thrown his way. In other words, he was the intended target on 21.3% of the screen passes he was on the field for. In 2022, he's caught 14 of 62 screen passes. That's 22.6%. You get the idea. Kelce simply hasn't been a part of the screen game so far this season the same way he has been in the recent past.

But it’s not just the screens. There have been eight other designed pass plays (run-pass options, rub routes, jet sweeps, swing passes) on Kelce’s remaining 43 routes, only two of which have been intended for Kelce and one of which was thwarted because the rub route that was supposed to get him open was thwarted by the defensive back and Patrick Mahomes had to run instead. (He was also even more open than Wanya Morris on the tackle-eligible play that resulted in Morris’ touchdown catch. Mahomes threw it to Morris because it’s way more fun to get a touchdown for the tackle, obviously.) He’s also been asked to chip-release on four routes, only one of which resulted in a target.

One reason Kelce has been targeted less frequently is the fact that there’s finally a wide receiver — for the first time since the Chiefs traded for Tyreek Hill — who is worthy of being a top option for Mahomes. Once Rashee Rice stepped into the starting lineup full-time toward the end of last season, he exploded with 43 catches for 518 yards and three touchdowns in a six-game span, then added 26 catches for 262 yards and a score in Kansas City’s four playoff games.

He's continued to come on strong this season, with seven catches for 103 yards in the season opener and five catches for 75 yards and a touchdown in Week 2. He's been the intended target on 15 of Mahomes' 53 pass attempts, a 28.3 percent passing percentage that's higher than anything Kelce has posted in his career. Rice is also sixth in the rankings. National Football League (NFL) averaging 3.56 yards per route run, according to Tru Media, out of the 181 players who have run 25 or more routes. His emergence creates a much different situation in the passing game than the Chiefs have had over the past two years.

Beyond the relative lack of passing compared to what he’s done in the past, there’s also the issue of what’s happened when Kelce has gotten the ball. He and Mahomes have connected on just one of their patented scramble drill passes so far this season. It resulted in a big gain (23 yards), but that play also accounts for 59% of his total yardage this season. Even if we added in the penalty-nullified reception, the 23-yard play would still account for nearly 30% of his yardage total. Kelce hasn’t done much after the catch on his few receptions, with just 2.5 yards after the catch per reception. That’s less than half of both his career average (5.8) and his mark from last year, when he played injured for much of the season (2.5).

Obviously, all of these numbers are subject to small sample size caveats. Kelce could easily have a spectacular game against the Falcons on Sunday night, even though Atlanta has allowed just 98 receiving yards to tight ends through two games. We know that Mahomes and Kelce have a mind-meld like no other in the NFL, and we know that Andy Reid loves nothing more than to get Kelce involved in creative ways when the Chiefs get close to the end zone. However, given that Kelce is now just weeks away from turning 35, it’s worth wondering if this is perhaps the first time we’re seeing him as a complementary target to the passing game, rather than a focal point.