Chiefs injury updates: Travis Kelce returns to practice; will he play vs. Broncos?

Travis Kelce crumpled to the turf, hobbled off the field, spiked his helmet and, while sitting on the bench, stared at the roof at Minnesota’s stadium.

Crafting a second half that solidified his most productive game this season wouldn’t have seemed to be part of the sequence, but that’s what happened.

And it’s looking like the All-Pro tight end will play on Thursday against the Denver Broncos. Andy Reid said everybody practiced on Tuesday. Kelce, who did not practice on Monday, was a limited practice participant on Tuesday.

“He’s done well,” Reid said when asked about Kelce. “We’ll see how he moves around, how he feels. He’s always been honest with me.”

Kelce finished with 10 receptions for 67 yards and a touchdown in the Chiefs’ 27-20 triumph over the Vikings. More than half of the yards and the score came in the second half — on an ankle he appeared to twist.

“That’s a legendary type of game to be able to battle through that,” Patrick Mahomes said.

Mahomes said he didn’t see the injury when it happened, on a second-and-1 from the Chiefs’ 34 with about a minute remaining in the first half.

“Looking back on it now, seeing how that ankle rolled and being able to come back out there and play at a high level and score a touchdown that we needed to win the game, (it) speaks not only the talent he has but the toughness he has,” Mahomes said. “He’ll battle through anything to go out there and play.”

Until this season, Kelce had managed to avoid the big injury. He missed a game in 2020 because of COVID-19 protocols, and in 2017 he, along with other starters, didn’t play in the season finale because the Chiefs had clinched their playoff position.

Otherwise, Kelce has been an iron man, appearing in and starting nearly every game from 2014 until this season’s opener. That’s when, two days before the Chiefs took on the Detroit Lions to kick off the NFL season, Kelce suffered a knee injury in practice that kept him from action.

That turned out to be the Chiefs’ lone loss this season, and Kelce had a message to Mahomes.

“He texted me and told me there was no doubt he was playing the next week,” Mahomes said. “That was the end of it. That speaks to the mindset and toughness he has.”

Patrick Mahomes ankle injury?

Mahomes also shared an injury update about himself. What was believed to be an ankle injury at Minnesota wasn’t that at all, he said.

“You remember when you were in high school and someone ‘frogged’ you?” Mahomes said.

Mahomes explained that a defender’s knee had struck him on the side of his calf.

“It sent a shock through my leg,” Mahomes said. “It’s fine. It’s a bruise. Everybody thought it was my ankle. It was the old frog to the side of my leg.”