The King is Dead. All hail the King. For the last eight or so years, the fantasy community has been spoiled. The tight end landscape has been treacherous, but Travis Kelce was a bright spot. He wasn’t always the TE1, but he always gave you an edge at the position. Last season brought a massive change. Brock Bowers and Trey McBride came for the crown, and Kelce seemingly went out with a whimper. Fantasy managers who spent a second-round pick on Kelce in 2024 would certainly call him a bust, but does that truly mean his reign is over?
Travis Kelce 2025 Fantasy Football Preview
How Bad Was Last Year Really?
I don’t tell people how to feel. That never ends well. If you spent a high pick on Kelce in your 2024 fantasy draft, you were not happy at the end of the season. BUT…the stats don’t exactly tell the same story. Kelce was third in targets, third in receptions, and fifth in yards among TEs. He finished as the TE5 in fantasy. He didn’t live up to his perennial TE1 status, but he didn’t fall off the face of the Earth either.
That’s not to say it was all good. His yards per target, yards per catch, and touchdowns were the worst of his career. The yardage numbers are cause for concern, but they also dropped so badly that it feels like 2024 could be an outlier, not the new normal. Kelce has been a 12-yard-per-catch guy his whole career. In 2023, that dropped to 10.6, a big fall for Kelce, but putting him more in line with most tight ends. He was mortal. Last year, Kelce averaged 8.5 yards per catch. Obviously, he is getting older, but a 33% loss in production seems excessive.
At the end of the day, 133 targets, 97 catches, and 823 yards are a damn good season for a fantasy tight end…just not good enough for Travis Kelce and his second-round ADP. He was a bust. Plain and simple. However, the two worst things against him in 2024, the yards and the measly three TDs, both feel correctable. The volume is there; we just need more efficiency.
Why Will 2025 Be Different
Do I have anything other than a gut feeling to tell you why 2025 will be different? No. No, I don’t. But let me paint this picture for the sake of entertainment. The Chiefs got embarrassed to end the 2024 season. The Eagles beat them down in front of the biggest audience possible. It was not good. My co-host Josh Hudson tells the story of this being a Patrick Mahomes revenge tour, and I agree. I also think that carries over to Travis Kelce.
Kelce could have retired. He could have ridden off into the sunset rich and dating the biggest pop star in the world. But he didn’t. Instead, Kelce came back because he has something to prove. It was easy to tell he wasn’t in great shape last year, but I’ve noticed we haven’t seen any reports like that this preseason.
I’m not going to project some fantastical season for Kelce. The man will turn 36 this year. But his average is probably good enough, especially at this new fifth-round draft cost. Kelce was targeted just over eight times per game last year. Let’s drop that to 7.5. That would put him between 120-130 targets, depending on whether he plays 16 or 17 games. His catch rate didn’t change much. He is catching 72% of those targets.
So, we’ll call it 90 catches on 125 targets, and 10 yards per catch, a return to normalcy, would give him 900 yards. Predicting touchdowns is hard, but he averages seven touchdowns per year and has rarely been under five in a season. Let’s give him six this year. That would be 216 PPR points, and Kelce isn’t looking too bad at that new ADP. And these are pretty average numbers.
What if he gets back to 11 or 12 yards per catch? Far more likely is that he scores 10+ touchdowns again. Now, we’re talking about Kelce finishing in the Top 3 and outplaying his draft cost.
We dig into the whole Chiefs offense in our latest episode!
What Could Go Wrong?
Everything I’ve said to this point paints a rosy picture of what is likely to be Kelce’s final season. But I could definitely be wrong, just ask anyone who knows me. I am not going to spend a ton of time in this section talking about Kelce’s age. He is old and could easily regress further or even get hurt. That’s a given. The larger concern is the number of weapons at Patrick Mahomes’ disposal.
The Chiefs lost Rashee Rice early last season. It took some time for Xavier Worthy to find his place. Hollywood Brown started the year hurt and never got going. All of that changes this season. Outside of losing Rice for a presumed three or four-game suspension, the receivers will be ready to go in 2025. Will Rice be the target hog we saw in those first three games? Will Worthy’s ability to score from anywhere demand even more touches? Is Hollywood Brown ready to stretch the field?
If all of these things happen, the Chiefs will need to throw 700 times to keep everyone happy. That’s not impossible volume, but it is certainly not the trajectory that they have been on the last few seasons. Instead, someone is likely to get left behind, and it’s easiest to point at Kelce. With his efficiency numbers plummeting in 2024, what if the volume goes away in 2025? Then we get a Travis Kelce who is barely a top-10 fantasy tight end, and this is a sad ending to the story.
Conclusion
Travis Kelce is no longer the player he was in 2023, but I don’t think he is the player we saw in 2024 either. I don’t believe Patrick Mahomes will all of a sudden stop throwing to him, and I don’t believe he forgot how to score touchdowns. Yes, last season was disappointing, but the good news is twofold. Those poor numbers made Kelce a lot more affordable in fantasy drafts, and a poor season for Travis Kelce is still a top-5 fantasy season. While some will run away from Kelce in their fantasy drafts, I say buy the dip and enjoy the last season we have with one of the best fantasy assets ever.
Looking for your favorite team? This link will take you to the rest of our 2025 Look Inside team previews.
A Look Inside the Kansas City Chiefs
Editor’s Note: While this article focused on Travis Kelce in fantasy football, we don’t want to leave you hanging on the rest of the team. Here is a quick look at the other fantasy-relevant Chiefs from Josh Hudson.
Patrick Mahomes
The revenge tour is real. Mahomes averages over 37 pass attempts per game, and before the last two seasons, averaged over 8.1 yards per pass attempt in five of six seasons. And now he has not one but two field stretches to take pressure off the middle of the field. The Chiefs are going to yet another Super Bowl, and Mahomes as QB6 might end up being a value.
Isiah Pacheco
Most people who know me know I’m not the biggest fan of Isiah Pacheco. He’s just a meh player. But the Chiefs seem to like him, and it’s clear that their offense lost some luster after he went down. Now back healthy, Pacheco should approach 200 carries and 35+ targets. He’s an RB2. That’s the long and short of it.
Kareem Hunt / Brashard Smith
Kareem Hunt is older and kept the Chiefs afloat as best he could in 2024. Now he’s just expected to help as a change-of-pace and on passing downs. Brashard Smith is the rookie who can do it all. But he’s a 7th-round pick (much like Pacheco once upon a time), so he has to earn it. Both are late-round dart throws who will likely end up on waivers at some point and/or have a chance to win you a week or two.
Rashee Rice
Is Rice the player who averaged almost 10 targets a game to begin last season before his injury? Or is he just an average player that will be overtaken by better and more explosive WRs? His ADP makes sense as a good bet for the former. If you start your WR corp with someone like Nico Collins or Brian Thomas Jr., grabbing Rice and his steady volume is a good pairing.
Xavier Worthy
Worthy is the most explosive player in this offense. Until he can win at the line of scrimmage consistently, he’s a boom-or-bust WR2. If you begin your draft with someone like Ja’Marr Chase or Drake London, pairing them with Worthy is worth his ADP.
Marquise Hollywood Brown
Hollywood Brown isn’t going to be a 100-target WR in this offense. Best case, he remains healthy all season and sees 75-85 targets. He’s a best ball target and flier if something happens to Rice/Worthy/Kelce.
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You can also see where Travis Kelce and the rest of the Chiefs fall in our 2025 Fantasy Rankings here!
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