How Travis Kelce set the tone for Chiefs’ playoff win — five days before the game

This is a Travis Kelce story, a story about the best postseason game a 35-year-old tight end has ever played.

But you’ll just have to trust me on that, because it begins inside the home of a Chiefs wide receiver who turned 25 a couple of months ago.

Early this week, second-year wideout Nikko Remigio delved into some extra homework on his iPad. He popped on film of the day’s practice, and before he finished watching even one play, he had to pause it.

His wife, he thought, ought to see this too.

“Look,” he said. “You see how hard Travis is running?”

Yes.

“It’s supposed to be a jog-through practice. You’re telling me this guy doesn’t want to win?”

The clip, by the way:

“He’s running with the ball 20 yards downfield,” Remigio said. “He set the tempo for practice this week: We’re coming out running.”

Set the tempo on a Monday.

And then again on a Saturday.

The Chiefs grinded out a 23-14 win against the Texans in the AFC Divisional Round, a victory that sends them to a seventh straight AFC Championship Game next weekend. And after one stop in Baltimore, that tour returns to its familiar home at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

Like it never left.

A 35-year-old tight end is playing like he’s never aged.

Kelce caught seven passes for 117 yards and a touchdown that, OK, should reserve most of its credit for the Patrick Mahomes acrobatic throw on the front end. But for the first time in a bit, he did most of the heavy lifting for some yardage on the back end of another throw.

The final score won’t show it, but Chiefs offense struggled Saturday. They managed only 212 yards, and by the way, teams that have failed to reach 215 yards in a playoff game are 18-95 all-time.

The Chiefs’ initial 21 snaps totaled just 69 yards. And then came a breakthrough — in a most familiar form.

Well, kind of familiar.

The Chiefs called a pass play that most simply asked Kelce to find some space over the middle, such a basic concept that Kelce called it a “Day One install” type of play. That same assignment — just find some space — made magic on the same field against the same team five years ago.

See, the outset of this era — the Chiefs dynasty — more closely resembled the last era.

The playoff heartbreak.

The Chiefs trailed by 24 points in an AFC Divisional Round game against the Texans in January 2020, before they’d ever won a modern-era Super Bowl. And anyone who believed in curses was gaining some evidence.

But then Kansas City just stormed back. Mahomes and Kelce stormed back. They led by halftime. Kelce had three touchdowns by then. And his route on two of them could be best described as, hey, just go find some space.

On Saturday, the opening, the space, came as the result of a busted coverage.

“They tried to zone it off,” Mahomes said, “and he just got to the window right behind the linebackers.”

Within a split-second, Kelce was behind the Houston secondary, too.

The familiarity is the route and the catch. The earlier phrase — only kind of familiar — refers to what came after, because it’s unusual.

Kelce sidestepped not one but two tackles, and he turned a potential 16-yard gain into 49. This next statistic might surprise you, but Kelce forced all of three missed tackles the entire regular season (after 20, 25 and 23 the previous three).

Yet this one play encompassed 33 yards after contact. His regular-season total over 16 games: 18.

More in one play than in 16 games.

“It just felt good to finally make a guy miss this year,” Kelce said with a grin.

If there is one primary spot in which his age has shown up, it’s there. For years, the Chiefs’ tight ends room has emphasized making something extra happen after the ball is in your hands. And for years, they’ve had the league’s shining example. Get more than what the play gets you, they call it.

It’s just plain disappeared from Kelce’s game this year, and that’s not judgment. It’s a long time coming. He’s late to this party.

That’s not his game anymore.

Until January.

If there is one primary spot in which his age hasn’t shown up, it’s the postseason. It’s almost inexplicable the way a switch flips, and it’s not as though it’s a rags-to-riches plot. It’s not like getting something out of Marquez Valdes-Scantling.

This guy is already pretty good. And then in the postseason, he just never has a bad day. Over the last 14 games, his worst outing is seven catches for 71 yards. Nobody in NFL history has caught more playoff footballs than he has. As of Saturday, nobody has more 100-yard games either.

It’s remarkable. A Hall of Fame tight end swallows his regular-season resume by comparison.

There is such a drastic difference between the two that earlier in the week Mahomes warned backup quarterback Carson Wentz about it.

“Those tackles that tackle him in the regular season,” Mahomes told Wentz, “don’t tackle him in the playoffs.”

And, sure, the earned time off helps. It did a year ago. Kelce acknowledged after Saturday’s game that his body “100%” felt stronger after a 24-day layoff this year, too.

He chose to rest last year, bypassing the chance for another 1,000-yard season. That decision resonated throughout the locker room. A tone-setter, you might say.

It was less subtle this month. Remigio wasn’t the only one to notice a difference in the practice habits. With the bye week, head coach Andy Reid decided to pit the offensive and defensive starters against one another — the 1s vs. 1s. Linebacker Leo Chenal almost laughed at the way Kelce enjoyed putting on the pads.

“He was excited,” Chenal said.

For a couple of years now, you can’t but wonder if you’re seeing the finale of perhaps the best to do it.

And then he reminds you there’s something left.

Let me put his day in perspective — his age in perspective — one more way. Kelce’s 117 receiving yards are the most ever in a playoff game for a tight end 32 years or older.

Have I reminded you that he’s 35?

Because he sure won’t.