Travis Kelce DID attend Chiefs OTAs on Monday, team reveals after he mysteriously went missing on Day 3

Travis Kelce was not seen during organized team activities (OTAs) on Wednesday, but the team said the Kansas City Chiefs tight end was a participant on Monday.

Kelce’s absence caused a stir on Wednesday as attending media were unable to see the 34-year-old, who is known to travel the world with his pop star girlfriend Taylor Swift.

But according to some photos released by the team on Wednesday, Kelce attended Monday’s voluntary practice where he saw his first action alongside new teammate Marquise Brown.

His teammate and quarterback Patrick Mahomes was at practice Wednesday, taking part in some conditioning and throwing drills with new wide receiver Xavier Worthy and Sky Moore.

Kelce’s decision to cancel Wednesday’s OTAs has raised eyebrows inside and outside the franchise, given what he said last year about football’s equivalent to baseball’s spring training.

“I just love the game,” he told reporters at the time. ‘I think that makes me live like a young, happy footballer. I get to play a game for a living at 33, 34 – and I don’t want to lose that.

“I don’t want to lose the excitement I had as a kid before the game.”

He added: “Every day I come in with the best team, the best players and (and) best coaches in the world, so it makes it easy to just come in here and just enjoy it.”

Last weekend, Kelce appeared at his own music festival – Kelce Jam – in Kansas City with Mahomes, Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz and Diplo.

Before that, he was out for a lavish dinner and boat ride with Swift in Lake Como, Italy, as the pop star continues to tour Europe for her ‘Eras’ Tour.

According to reports, Kelce recently signed a two-year extension worth up to $34.3 million.

Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid is hoping for a much quieter remainder of the offseason now that the defending Super Bowl champions have reunited for a series of voluntary workouts, culminating in their mandatory minicamp in the middle of next month.

Whether it’s the unsolved car crash in Dallas involving Rice, kicker Harrison Butker’s polarizing comments or the wild schedule forced on Kansas City by the NFL, where it’s played every day of the week but Tuesday is there has been no shortage of headlines about the Chiefs since their title win in February.

“Obviously we don’t want these things to happen,” Reid said, referring mainly to Rice’s legal troubles, “but things do happen and you learn from them. And you put an end to it. That’s what’s important.’

The case involving Rice, one of last season’s breakout stars, was the biggest headache for Kansas City.

The 24-year-old is facing one charge of aggravated assault, one collision causing serious bodily injury and six collision causing injury after he was accused of driving at speeds of nearly 120 miles per hour before a crash. The wreck of a speeding Lamborghini, which Rice admitted to driving, involved six vehicles and caused multiple injuries.

One of his friends, Theodore Knox, was driving a Corvette involved in the wreck and faces the same charges. Both are accused of leaving the scene without providing information or determining if anyone needed medical attention.

Earlier this week, Dallas police said a separate situation apparently involving Rice was resolved when a man signed an affidavit saying he would not face charges over an incident at a downtown nightclub. The wide receiver had reportedly been charged with assaulting the man, although Rice was never identified by Dallas police in a report of the incident to The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Rice continues to practice with the Chiefs during their voluntary training program.

“We’re just going to let the situation run its course,” Reid said.

Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was asked what advice he could give Rice moving forward, especially with a lawsuit — and likely suspension from the NFL — hanging over his head and the start of the season less than four months away.

“We’re trying to do everything we can to teach him to learn from his mistakes,” Mahomes responded. ‘That was obviously a big mistake. Learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again, and do your best to be the best you can be for society and the people around you. … We’re obviously going to do what we can to get him on the right path to becoming a great football player, but we also want him to become a great person.”

Mahomes also said that while he doesn’t necessarily agree with the comments Butker made in his recent speech at Benedictine College, the Chiefs’ star quarterback supports the kicker’s right to make them.

Butker said, among other things, that most women who earned degrees were probably more excited about getting married and having children; argued that some Catholic leaders are “forcing dangerous gender ideologies on America’s youth”; referred to a ‘deadly sin kind of pride to which a month is dedicated’ in an oblique reference to Pride month; and took aim at President Joe Biden’s policies, including his condemnation of the Supreme Court’s reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

“We’re not always going to agree,” Mahomes said, “and there are certain things he said that I don’t necessarily agree with.”

However, Mahomes doesn’t believe Butker’s comments will be an issue in the locker room. He also doesn’t think Rice’s legal troubles will cause any division as the Chiefs chase their third straight Super Bowl title and fourth in six years.

“When you come into the locker room, it’s a safe space where everyone can be themselves,” Mahomes said. “It’s always good to have people here – people in Kansas City competing with each other – and then be as smart as we can when we’re not in the building.

“I think guys understand that we have to step up as a team and as an organization,” Mahomes added, “but we have to go out and prove it so other people can believe it too.”

The Chiefs would certainly do well to build a bond quickly. The NFL has presented them with a brutal schedule.

In addition to playing every day of the week except Tuesday – including Christmas for the second year in a row – the Chiefs are done with their bye after Week 6 and later have a period where they play three games in an 11-day span. .

“Our schedule has gotten crazier and crazier every year. We know we’re going to have a lot of primetime games. We built a lot of equity to be able to play in those games,” Mahomes said, before adding with a wry smile, “I know I’m going to try to be better on Christmas because last Christmas wasn’t great.”