Travis Kelce just silenced all the haters with one simple catch during Sunday's game against the Los Angeles Chargers.
The Kansas City Chiefs TE has passed Tony Gonzalez for the most receptions in franchise history with 917. Gonzalez had 916.
Kelce has gotten out to a slower start this season, totaling only eight receptions for 69 total yards and no touchdowns across the Chiefs' three games.
But in Sunday's game, he started the with 38-yard gain. As of the beginning of the third quarter, he five receptions for 74 yards already in the game.
He really said, 'Look What You Made Me Do.'
While many people are publicly criticizing Travis Kelce over his slow start this season, some members of the Kansas City Chiefs squad wanted to make sure that everyone knew they have the utmost confidence in their captain.
JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mecole Hardman and Rashee Rice were all spotted wearing Travis Kelce t-shirts prior to the team's Week 4 matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.
CBS' Tracy Wolfson further reported that the custom Kelce shirts were from Rice so the receivers could "honor their leader and a guy who has mentored all of them."
It's clear they love Kelce and know he is a vital part of the offense, regardless of whether his efforts show up on the stats sheet or not.
Earlier this week, head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes also passionately defended Kelce.
Some people were calling for Kelce to retire, claiming that he is distracted due to all of his offseason activities. But that's not the case at all. And Reid made sure to put an end to all of that.
"I know people are saying that he's old or that he has distractions, but defenses don't think that," the head coach said. "Trav is fine. He just keeps being Trav. He works his tail off. He hasn't lost a step. He's not distracted. (Some of these defenses) are making sure he's taken care of.
"The thing the NFL has right now is some really good tight ends that just aren't blockers that can match up against safeties and nickels, in this league. Our safeties and nickels work on that like crazy, those are big bodies that are usually bigger than you are," Reid added.
Everyone knows how dangerous Kelce is, especially when he's paired up with Mahomes. So it makes sense why opposing teams want to make sure that the tight end is covered at every moment.
But what people aren't taking into account is who is open when all the attention is on Kelce. So while his impact isn't showing up on the stats sheet, he is contributing to each and every win.
"In all honesty, he's always been this guy. He wants to make an impact on the game and make plays, but he wants to win at the end of the day," Mahomes explained. "If we're winning, he's good with going out, blocking, and impacting the game any way he can. . ."
And on Wednesday, Kelce spoke out about all these claims during the latest episode of the New Heights podcast.
"Whatever it is. It's football, baby. I'm not getting caught up in getting the targets and all that," Travis said. "I just want to have a successful offense, and I think Pat's doing a great job of finding the open guy and making the right decisions right now. And we just have to keep finding -- it's a new offense, new players, new pieces, and we're just finding how to have success throughout the season. As an offense, you're going to go through these ups and downs throughout the season, and you just want to make sure that you clean up all the mistakes that you're you're making, make sure that you're communicating so that everybody understands exactly where we're going moving forward. And nobody does it better than Coach (Andy) Reid and Pat Mahomes."
"I've had a lot of catches in this league, man," Travis added. "I'm not worried about, you know, the catches and the yards and all of that. I have the most fun when I get the ball thrown my way. Who doesn't? I mean, it has everything to do with execution, just making sure we're doing whatever we can to win these football games, man. And that's always going to be the goal."
So what's his message to all the haters?
"As long as we're winning football games, we're good to go, baby," Travis said. "We're 3-0, man, it doesn't get any better than a 3-0 start."
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