Getty Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce at the 2023 CMT Music Awards.
If there’s one thing an NFL rookie should never do, it’s disrespect his elders.
Kansas City Chiefs superstar Travis Kelce has paved the way for tight ends everywhere both financially and conceptually — considering his role as a teacher and mentor at Tight End University. With that being said, Kelce probably wouldn’t love to hear that a rookie TE doesn’t even believe he plays the same position.
“Travis Kelce, he good, he great — puts up the numbers — but to me, yea he’s listed as a tight end… and he’s in tight end formations here and there. But to me, he’s just a bigger receiver,” Pittsburgh Steelers third rounder Darnell Washington told the “All Things Covered” podcast after listing his top-five tight ends and purposefully not including Kelce.
He went on to explain that he believes a true tight end lines up with his hand in the dirt more often than not, citing an example where Atlanta Falcons TE Kyle Pitts was not eligible for the John Mackey Award in college because he didn’t line up as a conventional tight end enough during the 2020 season. Although Washington didn’t appear as if his intention was to disrespect Kelce with these comments — noting: “that’s just their offense” — there wasn’t much admiration in his words either.
Needless to say, co-hosts Bryant McFadden and Patrick Peterson were quite shocked that the rookie had the gall to leave Kelce out of his ranking, especially since it wasn’t an oversight. In case you were wondering, he selected teammate Pat Freiermuth (which he admitted was biased), San Francisco 49ers’ George Kittle, New York Giants newcomer Darren Waller, Baltimore Ravens’ Mark Andrews and Arizona Cardinals veteran Zach Ertz.
NFL Tight End Position Has Evolved Over the Years
It’s true, there are more and more WR/TE hybrids in the modern-day NFL and Kelce was one of the pioneers. Still, there are far worse examples of tight ends that don’t block at all.
According to Pro Football Focus, Kelce did run block 292 snaps in 2022 with another 28 in pass protection. Obviously, the bulk of his snaps came as a receiver, however, with 748 passing snaps.
Does that mean he’s not a tight end? Washington might argue yes but most Chiefs fans would probably disagree. The league has changed over the past few decades and teams employ “blocking tight ends” for a reason.
That’s because most starters nowadays are better receivers than they are blockers. There are still some dual threats out there, like a Kittle or an Andrews, but is the Steelers rook really arguing that Waller is more of a true TE than Kelce?
PFF graded out Waller’s run-blocking at a 49.3 out of 100 in 2022 — which was worse than Kelce — and that’s just one example. The NFL has become a passing league and when teams do decide to run the ball heavily, they typically have the personnel on the roster to do so.
If Washington would like to model his game in a traditional sense, he has every right to do so — but there’s no reason to take a cheap shot at an NFL legend in the process.
49ers TE George Kittle Argued Tight Ends Becoming ‘More Explosive,’ Called Chiefs’ Travis Kelce ‘a Monster’
When discussing why he feels the tight end position is massively underpaid in May of last year, Kittle told Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio that “more tight ends are starting to get the ball more, starting to be [a larger] part of the offense, [and] be more explosive.”
He added: “Every NFL team… that’s won a Super Bowl or been to the Super Bowl for like the last five years has had an All-Pro tight end [as] a part of the team. I feel a tight end’s not just like a cog in the wheel, it’s an important position that can really add to your offense or diminish it.”
Of course, that included the Chiefs and Kelce, who Kittle praised throughout the interview.
“I mean, Travis Kelce, six seasons in a row, 1,000 yards. I’m pretty sure he has the most receiving yards over any wide receiver [or] skill position in the last six years,” Kittle touted. “He gets paid half of what a wide receiver makes which just boggles my mind. I mean, to me, Travis Kelce, he’s been doing it for so long and at such a high level. And he doesn’t have an off game. I think he has one bad game a year, and it’s just because he’s getting triple-teamed. So, he’s a player I look at like, when he gets the ball in his hands, he’s a monster.”
Ask George Kittle if Travis Kelce is a real NFL tight end.