Travis Kelce spent Chiefs training camp in St. Joseph drawing attention for two very different reasons: one clip showed him shaking free of safety Alohi Gilman and hauling in a catch, while another wave of posts tried to make his body the story.
That mix of praise and mockery became a topic on the latest episode of the New Heights podcast, where Travis and Jason Kelce dug into the online reaction. Jason said he enjoyed seeing the positive clip because it involved his brother, but he also pushed back on teams posting practice highlights at all.
“I liked watching this because you’re my brother, and I thought it was great,” said Jason Kelce, the ESPN analyst and former Eagles center. “(But) I cannot stand when teams put these clips online.
The Eagles do it, too, and I love the Philadelphia Eagles, and I love watching the clips. But like they put out a clip of like Jalen Carter beating the (heck) out of a guy who’s tried his hardest to make the team.
It’s like, ‘Dude, can we just let practice be its own thing? We don’t need to show everything.’
“It’s open practice, so there’s no point in even holding it back. That’s just one thing.
Like, to me, if there’s one safe space that a guy should feel good about, like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna try this new thing, and it might not work out but I’m gonna try it in practice because it’s not a game.’ And then all of a sudden, it’s basically the old (ESPN news alert) but worse, because now it lives forever on social media.”
The bigger problem, though, was the fake content. A weekend of posts circulated claiming Kelce had gained a lot of weight, including an AI-generated video that showed him with a large belly while walking around training camp.
“It wasn’t all good,” Jason Kelce. “It did start off with a lot of, I mean, the only way I could describe it is fat-shaming my brother.”
The reaction wasn’t limited to joking around. One X account with more than 400,000 followers posted that Kelce looked out of shape.
“We were in a world there for a little bit where they were saying fat is bad. Fat is bad,” Travis Kelce quipped. “Just saying, man, sometimes fat could be good, too.”
Jason Kelce also pointed out how convincing the fake images have become.
“What’s crazy is AI has gotten so good it was hard to tell cycling through those photos, like, what is the real photo?”
Travis added with a laugh: “How fat is Travis? Can he be that fat?”
The brothers treated the whole thing as absurd, but they also acknowledged that casual fans could have been fooled by it. Travis said the best approach is not to take any of the viral clips too seriously, whether they show him making a play or trying to look out of shape.
“He’s been wearing baggy shirts lately, so maybe that’s it,” Kelce said kiddingly. “Even the route right there, where I beat Gilman, who’s a great player, and he got me a lot of the times in camp, too.
You don’t see everything that’s out there. They just saw how slow that route was, and what they don’t realize is that that route is based off of a hundred other routes that I ran that that camp, and I’m setting up that move, or I’m trying to entice that move, and I’m going so slow.
It’s like I’m feeding you what you want, to try and jump the route that you think I’m going to run.
“That (stuff) was so ... funny. Reading some of these comments on that clip going viral, and then obviously the fat-shaming and saying that I got a dad body.
It’s all social media’s just having fun, and I even laugh at this (stuff). I mean, it’s ... pure comedy.”
Jason Kelce said Andy Reid stepped in to defend Travis after the online chatter picked up, though Travis said he hadn’t heard about that until it came up on the podcast.
“There have been other years when I’ve come in way fatter than I am this year, for sure,” Travis Kelce said. “We’re doing good so far.”
In Other News...
Chiefs Quietly Closed The Door On A Familiar Quarterback Option
The Chiefs have moved on from a familiar face in the quarterback room, waiving Chris Oladokun with an injury designation as the roster churn continued this week. If he goes unclaimed, he will land on injured reserve, ending a stint that once seemed to give him a foothold in Kansas City after he started the teams final two games last season when injuries thinned the depth chart.
This year told a different story. Kansas City reshaped the quarterback room by bringing in Justin Fields and drafting Garrett Nussmeier, and Oladokun never fully reestablished himself amid a preseason that did not help his case and a concussion protocol issue that factored into the decision. Nussmeier has already taken over Oladokuns jersey number, a small but telling sign that the Chiefs had quietly closed the door on a once-familiar option. [Read more 🡒]
Chiefs Undrafted Rookie Forced His Way Into A Real Roster Battle
Xavier Nwankpa arrived in Kansas City as an undrafted rookie facing the usual uphill climb, but the safety turned the summer into a real conversation. After offseason evaluations and a strong preseason, he carved out a place on the Chiefs 53-man roster as the fourth safety, the kind of spot that usually goes to a player who proves he can handle more than just a camp body role.
Nwankpas biggest opening came when he was unexpectedly asked to start in the second preseason game after an injury to Alohi Gilman, and he handled the moment well enough to keep building momentum. For a player in his position, special teams often end up being the deciding factor, and Nwankpa made clear that understanding was part of how he stayed in the mix as Kansas City sorted out the back end of its defense. [Read more 🡒]
Patrick Mahomes Family Video Arrived As One Chiefs Question Lingers
Patrick Mahomes and his family were back in the public eye this week as behind-the-scenes footage from a commercial shoot with CommunityAmerica Credit Union made the rounds. The clip offered a lighter look at the Chiefs star away from the field, where his name has remained central to just about every conversation surrounding Kansas City heading into the new season.
Travis Kelce added another layer to that discussion on the New Heights podcast, saying Mahomes determination to return from injury helped shape his own decision to keep playing. Even with that kind of confidence around the locker room, one obvious question still hangs over the Chiefs as they approach the opener against the Denver Broncos: Mahomes is expected to suit up, but nothing has been confirmed yet. [Read more 🡒]