Getty Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce scores the game-winning touchdown in Week 11.
If you had a feeling of déjà vu during the Kansas City Chiefs victory over the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday Night Football in Week 11, there’s actually a pretty simple explanation for that.
NBC Sports writer Peter King shared the scoop from superstar tight end Travis Kelce this morning during his famed “Football Morning in America” article.
Travis Kelce Shares ‘Funny Thing’ About Beating Chargers
After the victory, Kelce had a hilarious admission for King. “Funny thing is, we ran the same play to win this game last year… Ironic,” the legendary TE confessed.
The last time the Chiefs visited the Chargers, Travis Kelce scored the game-winning touchdown on this play!
King noted that the first thing he did after the phone call with Kelce was compare the two game-winning scores. “I hustled to YouTube to find the highlights from Kansas City’s overtime walk-off win over the Chargers last year in California,” he wrote. “I looked at the Next Gen Stats ‘dot’ rendition of the play.”
He then broke down each, pointing out two “slight differences.”
“Coach Andy Reid dressed up this version with some motion—Watson, running to the left pre-snap—that wasn’t in the play last year,” King continued. “And Kelce broke off his free run last year and cut straight upfield to score. This year, Kelce kept running in stride after making the catch, because there was a great path to the end zone.”
THAT LOOKS FAMILIAR @TKELCE
Chiefs Twitter even voiced that the touchdown “LOOKS FAMILIAR” after it occurred.
“It’s crazy to think Reid dared to call the same play to try to beat the same team 11 months after first calling it, and that it worked so easily. Again,” King concluded. “Reid knew what he was calling. He knew it won the Thursday night game last December. He knew it’d win this game too.”
Patrick Mahomes Praises Travis Kelce After Win
With all the injuries at wide receiver, Kelce was phenomenal under the bright lights once again (six for 115, three touchdowns) and quarterback Patrick Mahomes had nothing but good things to say about his number-one passing target during his postgame press conference.
“He’s the greatest tight end of all time,” Mahomes proclaimed early in the Q&A, “he makes plays like that to win games.”
Later, the Chiefs signal-caller divulged the trait that he admires most about Kelce. “He’s just a competitor,” Mahomes praised. “I’ll say it, I think that’s the best talent that Travis has. Not the size, the speed, the route-running, it’s that he will compete until the very end and he’s going to go down fighting. I respect that and I think that I’m the same way [as a player].”
Next Gen Stats tweeted out the “dot rendition” of Kelce’s second touchdown of the game and it’s basically the play above flipped in the opposite direction — so one could argue that the Chiefs ran the same crosser three times against the Chargers and the result was a touchdown in each of those moments.
Travis Kelce scores his 5th TD on a crosser this season, 3 more than any other player.
Kelce gained +19 YAC over expected on the TD, and now has his most YAC over expected (+47) since Week 15, 2021 against the Chargers (+59).
That just proves how dominant of a force Kelce is. You know what’s coming — in this case, a basic crosser route — and yet you still can’t stop it.
The chemistry between Mahomes and Kelce is truly something special to witness. Coach Reid put it best after the win over the Chargers: “We’re a part of it, and that’s the fun part. You’d like it to last forever but these guys grow old, and you know it’s not. So what I do is I try to enjoy every minute of it, every play.”
Chiefs Kingdom, just sit back and soak it all in — this is history in the making.