Travis Kelce delivered a pointed message to his Kansas City Chiefs teammates after a historically poor offensive showing, vowing the unit would not repeat the performance before a divisional road game against the Denver Broncos.
The Chiefs fell 20-3 to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday Night Football in Week 7, their first loss of the season. The defeat dropped them to 5-1.
Patrick Mahomes completed 19 of 33 passes for 165 yards with one interception. Kansas City managed just 213 total yards and failed to reach the red zone for the first time in Mahomes’ career as a starter.
According to OptaSTATS, the Chiefs became the only NFL team in the Super Bowl era to play a game with no rushes of 10 or more yards, no passes of 20 or more yards, no red-zone drives, no touchdowns and multiple missed field goals.
Harrison Butker made one of three field-goal attempts. He connected from 50 yards but missed from 58 and 45 yards.
Travis Kelce led the team with four receptions for 44 yards. Those catches moved him past Tony Gonzalez for the most receiving yards by a tight end in NFL history, including the postseason. Kelce’s total now stands at 15,423 yards.
Kelce also reached 1,104 career receptions, ranking fifth all time. He trails only Jerry Rice, Larry Fitzgerald, Tony Gonzalez and Jason Witten.
Speaking on the Oct. 28 episode of the “New Heights” podcast, Kelce did not mince words about the loss.
“Another frustrating performance for the offense,” Kelce said. “I think obviously didn’t even get a chance to get into the red zone…
“We didn’t perform well really on any phase. And it’s gotta fire you the [expletive] up, man. You gotta have a nasty taste in your mouth when you lose.
“You can’t be okay with being mediocre or looking around like, ‘I wasn’t the reason.’ You gotta [expletive] have a nasty, and just a disgusting taste in [expletive] losing in this league. And find the [expletive] answers. And all that means is you gotta go to work. And that started today. I’ll be damned if we go out there and have another [expletive] showing like that again. I can promise you that.”
The Chiefs opened the season 5-0 before the Seattle setback. Kelce acknowledged the earlier success while stressing the need to rebound quickly.
“It’s frustrating because we were rolling as a unit for a while there, and I think we’re not far off from getting right back to it,” he said.
Kelce emphasized collective accountability on the offensive side without naming individuals.
“We have an unbelievable group of guys on the offensive side, and I think a lot of it is just coming in with the right mentality and a togetherness that we’re not going to be denied, and I think we need to just learn from this, feel how it felt to get our tail kicked like that, and never let it happen again.”
Kansas City travels to Empower Field at Mile High to face the Broncos on Sunday at 4:25 p.m. ET. The Chiefs won the teams’ Week 1 meeting 31-10.
Kelce warned that Denver has improved since that game.
“Denver’s playing a lot [expletive] better than they did that first game,” the 11-time Pro Bowler said. “They’ve caught a stride here, and their offense is starting to put up a lot of points.
“They’re getting back (linebacker Jonathon) Cooper, who is a huge part of that pass rush and being stout in that run game. And you know it’s going to be another challenge.”
The Broncos enter the matchup at 5-2. A victory would keep Kansas City atop the AFC West.
