Have Travis Kelce’s stats gone down since dating Taylor Swift?

The Kansas City Chiefs have had a perfect start to their title defense after back-to-back narrow victories in Week’s 1 and 2, but they have done so without much help from one of the staples of their offense.

Kelce takes the blame

On his “New Heights” podcast Travis Kelce hosts with his now retired brother Jason, he admitted that he hasn’t had the best of starts, and has no one to point the finger at but himself. “I put that on me,” the Chiefs TE said on the latest episode of the podcast. “I didn’t play my best, and it spreads if you don’t fix it and I’ve got to get that thing fixed.”

Aside from being a three time Super Bowl winner, Kelce is revered as one of the top tight ends in the game. Since getting drafted out of the University of Cincinnati in 2013, he has been named to the NFL All-Pro first team four times, and holds the record for career receptions in the post season with 165 playoff catches. He is in the top five of each of the most important statistical categories for a tight end: catches, receptions and TDs.

He has cemented a Hall of Fame career, and now launched himself into the eye of the public not only with his podcast career, but his relationship with pop mega star Taylor Swift. He has become the most famous football player in the world, even more so than his quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who is a three time Super Bowl MVP, two time NFL MVP and the best player in the game right now, but are Kelce’s best days over?

Tale of the tape

He is 34 years old almost 35, and his older brother who is two years older than him just retired at the end of last season. He may not be in his prime but you would figure he has a few more years left in the tank. The question is, has the future Hall of Famer’s numbers taken a dip since sparking his relationship with Taylor Swift?

Kelce was a decent tight end for the first few years of his career, but in year four, he had his first 1,000 yard season and caught four TDs. Since that 2016 season, he rattled off six more 1,000 yard seasons having his best season in 2022 catching 110 passes for 1,338 yards and 12 TDs in a year that he and the Chiefs won the second of three Super Bowls during this dynasty.

The season after that was the first year he failed to reach 1,000 yards in almost a decade. It maybe a coincidence but that was the same year he started officially dating Taylor Swift. Chiefs fans don’t mind the crossing of cultures as long as the product on the field doesn’t change. At the moment it seems like Kelce shouldn’t just be pointing the finger at himself. Here is the break down of before and after Taylor Swift showed up at the first Chiefs game in Week 2 of last year.

Kelce’s stats: before and after T-Swift