Travis Kelce... is open on every play

[Dopey]

10 hours ago, GETTOTHE50 said:

Tremaine SHOULD have the athletic ability to play kelce mono y mono.

Yeah, Lord knows Milano can’t. See last year’s playoff loss. 

There hasn’t been a lb that can cover him for the past few years. Not one, and you expect Tremaine to be the only one who can? 
Question: what happens to the whole middle of the field Edmunds covers so well? Again, Lord know Milano can’t cover that much territory. 
I can only assume my sarcasm meter is broken. 

[Chaos]

Yesterday the Kansas City Chiefs score 27 points against the 9-8 Jacksonville jaguars. When all is said, and done a pretty average NFL offensive performance.

[BarleyNY]

10 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

What I don’t get is how open he always is in the red zone. 

I think it’s a combo of scheming him open early and Mahomes buying time when that doesn’t work. The two of them are dialed in to each other. The announcers actually had some great comments about Mahomes reading Kelce’s body language so he knew when he was turning for the ball. KC has a lot of extended passing plays where that comes into play. 

Just now, Chaos said:

Yesterday the Kansas City Chiefs score 27 points against the 9-8 Jacksonville jaguars. When all is said, and done a pretty average NFL offensive performance.

True, but they did that with a hobbled Mahomes and Chad Henne. Mahomes ankle’s health looms large for next Sunday. 

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

11 hours ago, GETTOTHE50 said:

Tremaine SHOULD have the athletic ability to play kelce mono y mono.

Put down the Spanish metaphor and step away from the keyboard...😁

[JoshAllin]

With Mahomes hobbled just keep a spy on Kelce instead

[Billsfan1972]

What's frustrating is how open he is on plays inside the 5 yard line.

 

Yesterday couldn't ask for easier TD's.  

 

When was the last time Buffalo scored an easy TD pass inside the 7.

 

Every catch seems like it is threading a needle.

[Eastport bills]

11 hours ago, Inigo Montoya said:

Kelce is open on every damn play.  Not a step on the defender open, but no one within five yards of him open. 

 

Kelce is obviously a fantastic football player with an incredible mix of size and athleticism, but what you see on the field with Kelce is the value of Andy Reid off the field.  Reid is able to scheme that guy open a hundred different ways.  He is the focal point of the Chiefs' offense, he is the one guy the defense absolutely has to cover, and he is still running wide open all over the field.   

 

Dorsey needs to shamelessly steal every one of Andy Reid's designed Kelce plays and put them in his playbook.  Run them with Knox, run them with Diggs.  I don't care who you run them with, if they have five yards of empty turf around them, the play is going to move the sticks.  

 

If imitation is the highest from of flattery, Dorsey needs to start blowing some sunshine up Andy's prodigious backside ASAP.

 

 

We have enough offense without Reid’s “Kelce” playbook. What we need is Edmunds or Poyer to shadow him and contest every 7 to 10 yd pass, and then rally to tackle him immediately. If you neutralize Mahomes security blanket, you take a lot of their offense away. The problem then is playing run defense against those 2 explosive backs. The pass rush has to make it harder for him to move in the pocket until someone gets open. This is on Sean and Frazier to keep the Chiefs in the low 20s. I don’t think they can outscore us because we’ll be high 20s., to 30s. Let’s beat the Bengals first. They will be tough on our defense.

[RocCityRoller]

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

He is bigger and stronger than whoever you are bumping him with.

but we have Edmunds, a physical freak

Edited January 22, 2023 by RocCityRoller

[GunnerBill]

2 minutes ago, RocCityRoller said:

but we have Edmunds, a physical freak

 

He can't cut like Kelce. He is a physical freak but he doesn't have that same fast change of direction. 

[Dr.Sack]

Rarely do teams bracket a TE 5 yards off the line of scrimmage. Kelce averaging 8 yards be catch is essentially a running back averaging 8 yards per carry. You do that give up those kind of yards you lose.

23 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

He can't cut like Kelce. He is a physical freak but he doesn't have that same fast change of direction. 

Notice that Kelce is extremely bendable and gets his center of gravity low to the ground while making those cuts and often stays low to plow for yards. He’s 6’5” but presenting a 4’ target on some of those cuts and dives.

[LABILLBACKER]

2 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

These "why don't they just cover Kelce???" threads never get old

If he's always open then you'll always have them.

[The Frankish Reich]

Kelce is a big TE but not the biggest.

He's certainly not the fastest.

So we watch him and say, "how does he keep getting open/making big plays?"

Basketball fans see Nikola Jokic and say "how does that slow-footed Serbian who can't jump keep winning MVPs?" Kelce is just plain football-smart in the way Jokic is basketball-smart. They see the field/court better than anyone else. We saw that in the KC game last year where he basically told Mahomes where he'd be with the certainty that he'd be open.

Meanwhile, freak of nature huge/fast athletes like Noah Fant remain consistently mediocre. Sometimes you're just the best at playing your position.

Edited January 22, 2023 by The Frankish Reich

[JDubya76]

12 hours ago, boyst said:

Dr Dre is basically Dr Pepper with only 4 of the 7 ingredients. 

Dr Pepper is basically Mr Pib for elitists. As if you need a medical degree to make a good soda. Well I never.

[PromoTheRobot]

Kelce is a Jedi

[Bookie Man]

Don't give a clean release off the line. No matter what.

[Billl]

2 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Kelce is a big TE but not the biggest.

He's certainly not the fastest.

So we watch him and say, "how does he keep getting open/making big plays?"

Basketball fans see Nikola Jokic and say "how does that slow-footed Serbian who can't jump keep winning MVPs?" Kelce is just plain football-smart in the way Jokic is basketball-smart. They see the field/court better than anyone else. We saw that in the KC game last year where he basically told Mahomes where he'd be with the certainty that he'd be open.

Meanwhile, freak of nature huge/fast athletes like Noah Fant remain consistently mediocre. Sometimes you're just the best at playing your position.

Kelce does the subtle things impossibly well.  He understands how to get the defender to just slightly lean one way, and then he immediately cuts the other way.  Like Jokic, his footwork is perfect and he seems to have a sixth sense for what his opponent is going to do before he does it.  

[beebe]

if it was as easy to stop kelce as people suggest, surely someone would have found a way by now. mahomes to kelce is the nfl's stockton to malone. it's sixth sense stuff. and while kelce is actually open a lot, many completions involve an incredible throw or an incredible catch (or both). 

 

the best players in this sport - in any sport - are going to get theirs. 

[JimBob2232]

Mahomes  is amazing...and Kelce allows him to be him.  Would be interesting to see how Mahomes would do without Kelce.  He is 33 - the same age as Gronk - so hopefully Father Time will find him soon.

 

At least this year they don't have Tyreek....but man - it seems like nobody can cover Kelce.  

[Scott7975]

3 hours ago, Billsfan1972 said:

What's frustrating is how open he is on plays inside the 5 yard line.

 

Yesterday couldn't ask for easier TD's.  

 

When was the last time Buffalo scored an easy TD pass inside the 7.

 

Every catch seems like it is threading a needle.

 

The Beasley TD looked pretty easy last week

[chongli]

This thread is two weeks old, but I saw an article in PFT today about Travis Kelce, relevant to this thread:

 

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/02/09/travis-kelce-why-am-i-always-open-andy-reid-baby/

 

"Travis Kelce: Why am I always open? Andy Reid, baby

 

Why am I always open? I say it all the time: Andy Reid, baby. Big Red,” Kelce said. “He can dial stuff up at the right time, create some things at the right time, and then on top of that everybody’s doing their jobs. It’s not just a me go out there and get open type play. I’m sure you guys like to think that, but there’s a lot of madness to it, and there’s a lot of guys doing their jobs for the big picture. I’m fortunate that I’m playing here, for sure.”

 

And then some good comments on a PFT article about stopping Kelce:

 

"Hubris

If I was a Chiefs fan, I’d be cringing. Philly needs to study the Pat Chung tape on Kelce."

 

"I think the reason he’s always open is Mahomes ability to extend plays and make any throw on the field at the same time. As Kelce has said many times, once the play breaks down then he just needs to know based on the play call where they will likely be open space and get there asap and Mahomes will find him. The two of them have the Reid calling great plays etc, but they have the school yard game down to a science also.

 

I agree with an above commenter that Philly should really study what Chung, Ninkovich and other Patriots did to stop Kelce using physicality, because that is one thing that has worked over the years."

 

"For the life of me I’ve never understood why some defensive coordinator hasn’t taken a 3rd string TE and turned them into a Defensive TE. Preferably one who has played defensive in H.S. and/or College.

The mismatches with slow LBs and undersized Safties always favors a Kelce or a Gronk."

 

So it seems like Belichick was able to stop Kelce. I hope McD and Frazier can shut Kelce down in the future.

 

Also, some funny comments about the KC offense being that of Reid, not Bienemy:

 

"You mean it’s not Bieniemy? I thought Bieniemy was the genius.
The Bieniemy head coach interview process. Q “How do you get Kelce open all the time?”
A “You’ll have to ask Andy”"

 

"Bieniemy next time he sees Kelce.

“Bruh…little help, I’m trying to get a HC gig…”"

Edited February 9, 2023 by chongli