Chiefs GM Brett Veach Calls Travis Kelce ‘28-Year-Old’ & Breaks Silence on His Future After 2-Year, Highest Paid TE Contract Extension

Travis Kelce has been nothing short of consistent in his tenure with the Kansas City Chiefs. After winning the Super Bowl thrice, the Chiefs TE was in for a huge payout and his team made sure to honor that. He recently signed an extension with the Chiefs that made him the highest-paid TE in NFL history. And now, a two-year $34.25 million extension comes with a lot of hopes.

Minutes after Kelce signed the contract, the Chiefs GM Brett Veach came on a virtual call to address everything about the 7x All-Pro. Interestingly, Veach thinks that Kelce still has a lot of time left in the league as the GM perceives the TE to be young in mindset after all these years.

Travis Kelce isn’t going anywhere!

The reporter on the Zoom Call asked a very snappy question to the Chiefs GM. “How long do you see Travis playing for the Chiefs? And not just playing but being the player, he’s been and everything else he’s been for the organization. How long do you see that continuing?”

The question didn’t catch Brett Veach by surprise as he expressed his confidence in the TE. “Well, I mean, every now and then you have one of these guys that are outliers. And certainly, Travis is one of those players,” said Veach.

“It’s funny it’s not even May yet and today we had a chance to get out there in phase two and the guys were out there running around, and Travis was the first guy in line. I mean he looked like he was 28 years old. And again, I mean the odds of someone playing this far into their thirties is very low, but it does happen,” Veach added later.

To put everything into perspective Kelce is in his eleventh season in the league and for the most part, he’s never missed more than 2 games in a season. Moreover, Kelce has had 7 seasons where he had 1,000-plus yards. That’s thousand-yard seasons in 70% of his time playing football, which is a phenomenal feat. In the 2023 season, he was just 16 yards short of making it to 1k.

His stats scream productivity on all fronts. Though Kelce had a rough regular season, he made up for it in post-season games where the Chiefs QB=TE duo broke Brady and Gronkowski’s record of post-season touchdowns. If we compare his performance to his younger counterpart in the position- George Kittle, Kelce can be seen finessing.

Kittle played 7 seasons in the league and only has three \1k-plus seasons. The 49ers TE had played most of the games in each season so far, except for the 2020 season, where he played 8 games and had 634 yards and 2 touchdowns to account for. Kelce has had multiple double-digit touchdown seasons, whereas Kittle just had one! For a 34-year-old, there are pretty decent numbers to show on his table. That is the reason why the Chiefs still think of him as a high-end player and decided to compensate him well for his time with the team.

The Chiefs TE broke the NFL record

As mentioned previously, Kelce signed a 2-year $34.25 million deal with the Chiefs. He even left former leading TE Darren Waller behind with a small margin. After achieving the lucrative deal, Kelce took to social media and said, “Feels good to be in KC,” and added, “It’s an honor and a pleasure, and I can’t wait to get after it these next two years.”

The updated contract of the TE though takes the mind to the old conversation of Kelce’s agent repeatedly telling him how “underpaid” he is. “My managers and agents love to tell me how underpaid I am,” said Kelce sometime earlier. Kelce could have taken a Tyreek Hill route and played for a different team that would pay him a fortune, but his love for the game and the Chiefs doesn’t allow him to do that, as the TE had revealed that he likes to play football and win for his side.

“The free market looks like fun until you go somewhere and you don’t win. I love winning. I love the situation I’m in,” he told Vanity Fair. “You see how much more money you could be making and, yeah, it hits you in the gut a little bit. It makes you think you’re being taken advantage of,” Kelce added. “But I know I enjoy coming to that building every single day.”

Till now, Kelce has made just about $90 million throughout his career in the NFL and the numbers are only about to go high. Kelce is getting a guaranteed sum of $17M and carries a cap hit of $15.4M this year. What do you think of the updated contract for the Chiefs TE? Let us know your thoughts below!