ChiefsPlanet - Football I had no f-----’ clue Kansas City was even in Missouri

Travis Kelce Living a Very Travis Kelce Life

Those who know Travis Kelce best are prone to employ his name as an adjective. Cutoff denim, for instance, is very Travis. A cream Gucci suit, splattered with red drawings of a pirate Donald Duck and paired with a Smokey the Bear-style hat (his outfit at a recent charity fashion show)—that was so Travis. The most Travis thing about Kelce’s Kansas City apartment might be that he employs one of his two bedrooms as a third walk-in closet, depository for various snake-collared shirts and Christian Louboutin kicks.

But when I meet Kelce in his apartment building’s lounge, he is clad in an unexpectedly un-Travis outfit: white Nike tee and red gym shorts, white Nike Prestos and a black compression sleeve around his left leg. I toss out an innocuous question about whether he’s lived in this building, in the downtown Power & Light District, for all four of his years as a Chiefs tight end, and he does a fairly Travis thing, letting slip a truth he’d probably rather not tell through a smile that disarms it.

His first two seasons in town he lived down the street. But, he says, “my neighbors didn’t like me.” Kelce missed just about his entire rookie year after having microfracture surgery on his left knee, which made him a 24-year-old with an abundance of money and no shortage of free time. Thus followed raucous nights that began and ended at Kelce’s apartment, which friends loved but which the doctor next door decidedly did not. After a few admonishments from the leasing office, Kelce noted the new luxury building nearby, in which he would be the first tenant of his unit and where he would have floor-to-ceiling windows. “Everything just made sense,” he says. So here he is.

But this is not where he is supposed to be now. Today’s plan was for me to tag along with Kelce on a promotional stunt delivering pizzas for Papa John’s, one of his many sponsors; some lucky local would answer the doorbell, un-scrunch some loose bills from a pocket and look up to see—surprise!—the dancing face of the Chiefs. It would’ve been fun. It would’ve been so Travis.

That face has been popping up in more and more places: on a monstrous video screen in Times Square and in NBC’s Sunday Night Football intro, onstage alongside Carrie Underwood. There was even a short-lived reality dating show on E!, Catching Kelce. Tony Gonzalez, this town’s last megastar tight end, thinks Kelce’s media appeal is obvious: He speaks freely and “doesn’t give a s---.” When I ask Aaron Eanes, Kelce’s manager, why sponsors enjoy working with the 2016 All-Pro, he says, “You can tell Travis gives a s---.” Being Travis, then, means both giving and not giving a s---. So Schrödinger, so Travis.

Kelce is not out there surprising local pizza lovers today for the same reason that he is sporting that black sleeve. Forty-eight hours earlier, in a Week 2 win over the Eagles, he scored a very Travis touchdown, taking a shovel pass from the 18-yard line and propelling all 260 pounds of his 6' 5" frame through the air, lifting off at the five and landing in the end zone while absorbing hits from two defenders. It was one of many plays he is still feeling two days later and, well, he says it would be weird to deliver pizzas with a slight, stiff limp.

The soaring touchdown, however, was only half of what made that Sunday particularly Travis. Earlier in the game he’d celebrated Kareem Hunt’s 53-yard TD dash by running to the Eagles’ sideline and delivering some choice words to a defender. Unsportsmanlike conduct; 15 yards on the kickoff. It was, dating back to last January’s playoff loss to the Steelers, the third straight game in which Kelce’s behavior drew such a penalty. Against Philly, Chiefs coach Andy Reid lit into him on the sideline and afterward said, “He’s got to learn.” K.C. news outlets, meanwhile, bemoaned the very Travis combination of 103 receiving yards and yet another foul for misconduct. On the radio the next afternoon one host described Kelce’s behavior as “what a little kid does.” Someone else compared the tight end to a child who hadn’t outgrown his binky.

When we meet, Kelce has yet to address the subject. Not that reporters didn’t try: Having dodged three postgame questions on the matter, he asked, “Any other questions?” He tells me he anticipated the queries and didn’t plan to address them. He didn’t want to get riled up and say something he might regret. “I just felt like I didn’t owe anybody an explanation,” he says. Which is a very Travis source of frustration. He’s been having to explain himself his whole life.

Travis Kelce entered the NFL in a very Travis way, and for maximum effect I will cede the floor and let him tell the story of the 2013 draft in his own very Travis fashion. “I got a call from an 816 number,” he says. “It just pops up on my phone as Missouri. I had no f-----’ clue Kansas City was even in Missouri—I thought it was in Kansas.” It’s in both. It’s confusing. “I’m like, ‘Nooo, not St. Louis. They don’t look like they have a bright future.

“I answered the call and it’s Andy Reid,” for whom Travis’s older brother, Jason, had played center in Philadelphia. “I’m like, ‘Hey, Coach! How are you? Sweet!’ He goes, ‘Yeah, listen. Are you gonna f--- this up?’ I was like, ‘Um, excuse me, coach?’ ‘Are you gonna f--- this up? I have the next pick [no. 63] and I wanna know if you’re gonna be the player I need you to be or if you’re gonna keep being this young punk who doesn’t listen to anybody.’ I’m sitting there like, Man, what? ‘Coach, I will be the best player you ever coached. Just give me a chance.’ And he goes, ‘All right, put your brother on the phone.’ ‘What? All right.’ I still have no idea what he said to Jason. I’m assuming they had a mutual agreement, like, ‘If he f---- this up, we’re both kicking his ass.’” ...

(long article but good, continued at the link)

https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/18/tr...as-city-chiefs