Travis Kelce has done a full 180 on one of football’s nastier little habits.
There was a time when Chiefs training camp in St. Joseph drove the tight end crazy.
The drill was simple enough: after a catch, defenders would close in and try to knock the ball loose with the “Peanut Punch.” For Kelce, though, it felt less like practice and more like getting swarmed by teammates who were trying to rip the ball away every time he touched it.
The annoyance reached a head a few years ago when Kelce caught a touchdown from Patrick Mahomes and then slugged teammate Jack Cochrane after Cochrane went for a punch out in the end zone.
On the latest episode of the New Heights podcast, Kelce revisited that general frustration and explained how it has turned into appreciation. Jeffrey Bassa’s forced fumble in the Chiefs’ 30-27 win over the Raiders on Oct. 4 changed his outlook.
“Even after the whistle is blown and the play is so-called dead, defensive players are still running up to you trying to punch the ball out,” Kelce said of the training-camp drills. “And I don’t know why ... it’s very annoying, especially when you’re in your third day of pads or sixth day of pads in seven days or whatever there was (at training camp), and you’re just getting ... haymakered by linebackers and DBs down the field as you’re trying to, like, finish the play.
So I was just being a (jerk) one day. I was like, I better see (teammates) throwing haymakers in the game, or I’m ... pissed.
“I’m like, if I don’t see at least two punchouts a game from all this (stuff) I’m having to deal with during training camp. I was just being such a (jerk), and just sure enough, to see it in one of the biggest moments of the season, Bassa coming through with a ... perfect punch, man.
It was great. I hope they do it for the rest of the practices from here on out.
That was absolutely electric. If that’s what we’re doing in the game, let’s keep it going, boys.”
Jason Kelce, Travis’ brother and the ESPN analyst and former Eagles center, wasn’t fully sold on the new attitude.
“We’ll see where your head is at the next training camp,” he said.
Travis Kelce, now in his 14th NFL season, didn’t shut the door on being at camp next summer. He did, though, circle back to the play that followed Bassa’s takeaway, saying he loved seeing Kenneth Walker score on the very next snap.
“Yeah, I’ll probably be saying the exact same thing,” Travis Kelce admitted.
But then he recalled the Chiefs’ last game and said: “And then the next play, Kenneth Walker takes it to the crib, man. Absolutely electric.”
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