Why Travis Kelce’s career day came on the most unlikely of nights in KC Chiefs’ win

The route is a drag, and as much as offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy will insist every play in the book is designed for a touchdown, this one is actually designed just to inch the Chiefs closer to a touchdown.

It hit a snag from the get-go.

As tight end Travis Kelce worked his way across the field, running parallel with the line of scrimmage, Raiders linebacker Denzel Perryman darted toward him to throw the whole thing off-course. Effective, too. Initially.

Perryman jammed Kelce so hard that it nearly knocked both players over, but Kelce used the next couple of strides to collect his balance. And the moment he did, wouldn’t you know it, there was quarterback Patrick Mahomes staring at him and ready to greet him with the football.

Kelce caught the pass at the line of scrimmage, outside the right hash, before taking a step backward and then weaving his way across the field and stumbling into the end zone outside the left hash.

He exhausted 52.7 yards in all, per Next Gen Stats.

For an 8-yard touchdown.

“That was just a possession throw to make it third and manageable,” Mahomes said, “and he takes it all the way across the field.”

The Chiefs won a football game they probably shouldn’t have won, 30-29 against the Raiders, and Kelce had a career-best game (four TDs) he certainly shouldn’t have had.

We’re here to talk about the latter.

The Raiders didn’t disguise their defensive game-plan at Arrowhead Stadium. They came to silence Kelce, Mahomes’ most trusted weapon, and if that looked familiar, follow the bread crumbs of their head coach. Josh McDaniels, member of the Patriots staff for the previous decade, borrowed a trick from his former boss.

“That old New England hit-him-off-the-line-of-scrimmage, double-cover him,” Mahomes said.

How ironic, unlikely even, that Kelce still managed to score four touchdowns. He’d never scored three in a regular-season game. No tight end had scored four since 1985.

But we’re going assess the damage, and it’s not the 28 points.

It’s the future.

The Raiders invoked a game plan that, frankly, I’m surprised their predecessors have not. And if you think those four touchdowns are going to prevent their successors from copying their homework, take a closer look.

Kelce finished with seven receptions for just 25 yards. He had not totaled fewer yards in a game in more than a calendar year. It’s also the lowest yards-per-reception in any game in which he’s had multiple catches. That’s for his entire career.

That makes this an interesting case because it might have lasting implications for the Chiefs — though that part is not entirely up to them. I’m not going to make the argument that Kelce had a quiet day. He had a career day, if you’re looking at the touchdowns, and that’s the statistic that matters most, sure. But there are some teams out there saying, Man, if we can change our red-zone defense and duplicate everything else, we might have a thread of something here.

What’s that entail?

The Raiders were insistent that if the Chiefs were going to move the ball, they wouldn’t be going though No. 87; they’d need to implement a Plan B. It’s a strategy that I’d anticipated more defenses would apply in 2022 after the Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill in the offseason. Heck, some defenses doubled both Hill and Kelce a year ago. Only one of those guys is still on the roster? The response seemed obvious.

We just haven’t seen much of it yet, at least not to the extreme in which the Raiders invoked the take-away-Kelce-at-all-costs plan. They were lining up a defensive end across from Kelce on several plays throughout the game, using that edge rusher to chip Kelce at the line, even if Kelce lined up outside the numbers.

“I know a lot of what the Raiders were trying to do was slow me down at the line of scrimmage,” Kelce said. “They were using their best pass rushers to try and hit me before I even got in the route. (We were) using that to our advantage.”

He hit on the risk-reward of it.

The potential reward is fewer long plays from Kelce. Fewer yards. On most nights, fewer targets.

The risk? The Raiders were dominating the Chiefs’ tackles for the better part of two quarters, and taking Maxx Crosby out of the equation to get in a chip on Kelce subtracted from perhaps their single biggest advantage in the game. They voluntarily changed a game they once led 17-0.

Add to that, if you’re going to double-team Kelce, the Chiefs will have single coverage elsewhere. Which is really what this all boils down to as we assess the future — absent Hill, do the Chiefs have enough weapons to punish a team for going to extreme lengths to take away Kelce?

They did for one night. They might have to do it again. And again. And again.

There are times this year, and the Colts game immediately comes to mind, when Mahomes has looked comfortable throwing the ball to Travis Kelce but only to Travis Kelce. There are other times, like Monday, when he’s simply progressed through his reads and found the open man. The latter might become more and more necessary.

The Chiefs were basically left in a position to prove their new weaponry would be good enough, and it’s probably not the last evidence an opponent will force them to submit. On Monday, though, it was enough. Marques Valdes-Scantling caught six passes for 90 yards, and Mecole Hardman had four for 73.

Kelce scored all four of the Chiefs’ touchdowns, but their most important play, in terms of win probably added, wasn’t any of the four. That instead came on a fourth-quarter third-down, football resting 15 yards shy of the sticks, when Mahomes found Mecole Hardman to his left for a 36-yard reception.

Kelce concluded the play barely past the line of scrimmage, the full 36 yards away from the completion, and he might have been the player most responsible for its execution. At the onset of the snap, he is standing outside the numbers, and the Raiders not only have safety Tre’von Moehrig opposite him, but they’ve also dragged defensive end Clelin Ferrell all the way out there, too.

Mahomes had plenty of time in the pocket. Ferrell, unaccustomed to defending tight ends outside the numbers, actually got flagged for connecting his hands above Kelce’s shoulders, a penalty the Chiefs could decline. That completion, according to Ben Baldwin’s model, increased the Chiefs’ chances of winning from 67% to 79%.

None bigger.

“It gets me fired up,” Kelce said. “Because then I can talk smack to the two guys that are guarding me, saying, ‘Might want to go to your defensive coordinator and switch it up there, bud.’”

The next one might.

But he might not.