Coming for the Kingdom: Is Travis Kelce in danger of a major slide at age 35? Chiefs better hope not

Kelce’s role and production are vital to the Chiefs’ offense. They’d also be effectively unprecedented in NFL history.

The Kansas City Chiefs are trying to do something no team has ever done: win three straight Super Bowls.

The rest of the NFL is trying to stop them.

Here are the key elements of the Chiefs’ success, which will again play a role in their quest — and could provide clues to how other teams can unseat the kings of the NFL.

Other stories in series: Rookies who could lift KC | How past 3-peat bids failed | Steve Spagnuolo’s genius

Age and history are working against Travis Kelce. Then again, they have been working against him for a couple seasons and you wouldn’t notice.

Kelce is already an anomaly at his age. There were a few productive tight ends at age 33, fewer at age 34 and it gets really thin once the bar slides to age 35. Kelce turns 35 in October, and based on the history of NFL tight ends he’s supposed to be retired or a non-factor by now.

No tight end in NFL history has had a 1,000-yard season at age 35 or older. Only Tony Gonzalez has reached 900 yards at that age, and only three others have even reached 700 yards (Ben Watson, Shannon Sharpe, Antonio Gates).

But there were very few good 33- and 34-year-old tight ends, so maybe it’s not fair to bet against Kelce being an outlier at age 35 as well. Kelce nearly reached 1,000 yards last season and was crucial in the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl run. Either way, as the Chiefs chase an unprecedented third Super Bowl championship in a row, Kelce’s age is one of the biggest questions they have to wonder about.

Travis Kelce tries to match Tony Gonzalez
Tony Gonzalez, a Chiefs great before Kelce, was the exception to the aging curve at tight end for many years.

Gonzalez was a productive tight end well into his mid-30s. He had 875 yards in 2011 at age 35 with the Atlanta Falcons, 930 yards at age 36 and 859 yards at age 37 before he retired. Gonzalez was a Pro Bowler at 35 years old and a Pro Bowler and first-team All-Pro at 36.

But that’s practically it. Those seasons from Gonzalez are the top three seasons, yardage wise, of any tight end 35 years or older in NFL history. So this is the Kelce conundrum: Either he is the second tight end ever to reach 800 yards at age 35, or he posts a career low in yards. His previous career low (not counting a rookie season in which he didn’t play due to injury) is 862 yards.

Kelce didn’t reach 1,000 yards last season, and that was odd. He had 984 yards, which snapped his streak of 1,000 yard seasons at seven. It also was good news for the legacy of Pete Retzlaff. Retzlaff had 1,190 yards for the 1965 Philadelphia Eagles, and he remains the only 34-year-old tight end to have a 1,000-yard season. For Kelce, it also seemed like a sign that he might be slowing down just a bit.

It can all be boiled down to this: When you’re in your mid-30s and you’re an NFL tight end, you are almost without exception done as a productive player. Is Kelce going to break that rule, or will the Chiefs have a big hole in their passing game as they chase history?