Kansas City Chiefs sign Travis Kelce to reported two-year, $34.25m extension
The Chiefs signed Travis Kelce to a two-year contract extension on Monday that general manager Brett Veach said would make him the highest-paid tight end in the league while keeping him with the Super Bowl champions through the 2027 season.
Kelce signed a four-year, $57.25 million extension with Kansas City in 2020, which followed a five-year, $46 million deal he signed in 2016. The new extension would keep 34-year-old Kelce at the club until he passes away. 38 years old.
Veach did not provide a financial breakdown of the latest extension, but he did call it a priority to “adjust his contract” and that “it is very fitting that Travis is now the highest-paid tight end in these two years.”
ESPN reported the deal is worth $34.25 million, with $17 million fully guaranteed for this season and most of the remainder guaranteed on the third day of the 2025 league year.
In a video posted on X by the Chiefs, Kelce said it was “an honor and a pleasure and I can’t wait to get after it for the next two years… Chiefs Forever.”
“Hard to put into words what Travis means to this organization and this city,” Veach told local reporters on Zoom. “Just a very special day and moment for this organization to once again recognize one of the greatest tight ends ever.”
Kelce, who was selected by the Chiefs in the third round of the 2013 draft, is already their career leader with 11,328 yards receiving. He needs eight receptions to reach 917 and pass Tony Gonzalez in the Hall of Fame for that record, and three touchdown catches would give him 77, which would drop Gonzalez to No. 2 on the franchise list.
Most importantly, Kelce has helped Kansas City win back-to-back Super Bowls and three titles over the past five years.
“Every now and then you get one of these guys who are outliers,” Veach said, “and Travis is one of those players. It’s not even May yet and today we had a chance to go out in phase two (off-season) and Travis was first in line.
It’s not just on the field where Kelce is a star.
His relationship with pop icon Taylor Swift has taken him to another level of celebrity, while appearances on shows like Saturday Night Live have made him a household name. He hosts one of the most popular podcasts across genres with his brother and former Eagles center Jason Kelce, and will soon host a quiz show on Amazon Prime.
But it all started on the field, where Kelce has long been considered one of the best tight ends in the game.
Last season, he missed the season opener with a knee injury, and he skipped the regular-season finale when the Chiefs were already assured of playoff berth. Those two games cost him the chance to extend his streak of 1,000-yard seasons to eight; he finished with 984 yards on 93 catches with five touchdown receptions.
When the postseason arrived, Kelce once again took his performance to another level.
He had seven catches for 71 yards in a wild-card win over Miami, the fourth-coldest game in NFL history. He had five catches for 75 yards and two scores in a division win at Buffalo. He had 11 catches for 116 yards and a touchdown in the AFC title game in Baltimore, and capped it all with nine catches for 93 yards in the Super Bowl against San Francisco.
Along the way, Kelce shut down rumors of his retirement, saying, “I have no reason to stop playing football. I love it.”
“The chances of someone playing that far into their 30s are slim,” Veach acknowledged, “but it does happen. There are unicorns in the business and Travis is one of them. He shows no signs of slowing down.”
The extension for Kelce comes a week after the Chiefs announced they had signed Veach and team president Mark Donovan of coach Andy Reid to contract extensions. The team did not say how long these deals would last, but they are expected to keep the three most central leadership figures with the franchise through the 2029 season.
Patrick Mahomes, who considers Kelce one of his best friends, is under contract through the 2031 season. All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones, the third member of their three-player core, signed a five-year deal worth $158 in March .75 million.
Mahomes celebrated the expansion with post on X, “I told you guys I will never let him leave again!! Congratulations my guy! @tkelce”.
In addition to rewarding Kelce for his continued stellar play, Veach pointed to several young players set to receive contract extensions in the coming years as yet another reason to solve the tight end’s long-term situation.
“We’ve got some younger guys coming up and as always, once the draft wraps up, we’ll have a chance to address that,” he said. “Travis is an outlier here. We all know that. When you talk about Travis here and his career and his legacy, we want to knock this out of the park early and shift our focus to the young guys coming up.