Travis Kelce is on pace to become the first tight end ever with over 1,400 yards in a season, but on Thursday he’ll run into a Chargers defense that seems to have a better feel than most for how to defend him.
When these teams played back in Week 1, Kelce caught 1 pass for 6 yards, his worst game of the season. They threw 6 passes his way, and he caught only 1 of them.
That’s just one game, of course, but Kelce last year caught only 1 pass for 1 yard in his game in that stadium. His worst game of that season. And Kelce in 2016 caught 1 pass for 8 yards in a Chargers game. Again, his worst game of the season.
He also had a poor game against them in 2015: 3 catches for 18 yards at Arrowhead.
Kansas City has won nine straight games in this series, but Kelce remarkably has never caught a touchdown against the Chargers. (He did, however, recover a Dwayne Bowe fumble in the end zone for a touchdown in a Chargers game back in 2014.)
Pretty remarkable stuff. But more of a statistical oddity, I think, than evidence that anybody should be thinking about starting some other tight end ahead of Kelce in a fantasy league. He’s really ripping it up right now, with 7 TDs in his last six games. And it’s not as if he’s never played well against the Chargers. In each of his last two home games against them, he’s caught 6 passes.
| KELCE VERSUS CHARGERS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Site | Result | Tgt | Rec | Yards | Avg | TD |
| 2014 | S.D. | W 23-20 | 4 | 4 | 33 | 8.3 | 0 |
| 2014 | K.C. | W 19-7 | 8 | 7 | 84 | 12.0 | 0 |
| 2015 | S.D. | W 33-3 | 7 | 5 | 46 | 9.2 | 0 |
| 2015 | K.C. | W 10-3 | 5 | 3 | 18 | 6.0 | 0 |
| 2016 | K.C. | W 33-27 | 7 | 6 | 74 | 12.3 | 0 |
| 2016 | S.D. | W 37-27 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 8.0 | 0 |
| 2017 | L.A. | W 24-10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.0 | 0 |
| 2017 | K.C. | W 30-13 | 7 | 6 | 46 | 7.7 | 0 |
| 2018 | L.A. | W 38-28 | 6 | 1 | 6 | 6.0 | 0 |
—Ian Allan