Is Travis Kelce Hurt? A Look at Whether the Chiefs Star Is Playing After Quiet First Half

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Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce had a prominent role to play early on against the Los Angeles Chargers on Friday night, but it wasn’t in a good way. Kelce collided with Chiefs wide receiver Xavier Worthy, who went down with a shoulder injury and never returned.

Kelce, who is a favorite target of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, was not too active in the first half as the Chargers took a 13-6 halftime lead. It’s not too often that Kelce has a quiet first half, so what’s going on here?

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Is Chiefs TE Travis Kelce Injured At All?

He’s usually Mahomes’ go-to receiver when he needs sure-fire yards. Yet Kelce wasn’t targeted much at all in the first half. CBS Sports Fantasy Football Writer Heath Cummings shared an interesting statistic as the game headed into halftime.

Cummings wrote, “Pretty awful sign that Kelce is sitting at 1 target on 17 Mahomes attempts without Worthy or Rice.”

Even during the halftime YouTube telecast, former NFL quarterback Cam Newton said, “Where is Travis Kelce?”

Without Kelce being involved in the Chiefs offense at all, it makes this first-half statistic quite telling from PFSN’s analytics staff. The Chiefs’ 0-5 start on 3rd down is their third-longest streak of failed third down attempts to start a game with Mahomes. They began last year’s Super Bowl vs the Eagles 0-8 and a 2020 game vs the Broncos 0-8.

Will Mahomes Target Kelce More in the Second Half?

Imagine if they had targeted Kelce more, but that leaves open another question. Is Kelce injured? Only getting targeted one time in a half has hardly happened at all with the Mahomes-Kelce connection.

In the 2024 season, Kelce had 97 receptions for 823 yards and three touchdowns. He was targeted 133 times in the Chiefs’ offense. Over his career, the three-time Super Bowl champion has 1,004 catches for 12,151 yards and 80 touchdowns, according to StatMuse. He’s a 10-time Pro Bowler, too.

There was no word from the Chiefs’ sideline about Kelce being injured. It will be interesting to see if Kelce gets more targets in the second half. But without Worthy or Rasheed Rice, who is serving a suspension, on the field, it’s going to mean that Mahomes has to work that much harder to get his tight end some catches.

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