Why Andy Reid gives Travis Kelce more slack than flak despite some envelope-pushing

One of Andy Reid’s enduring and even defining adages as a coach to his players is to “let your personality show.” And few have tested that acceptable range, and then some, more than Travis Kelce.

Even all these years since Reid first thought of him as “kind of a wild pony” — one whose on-field antics at times tarnished his sheer brilliance and exasperated Reid — Kelce still is capable of provoking what the longtime NFL coach likes to call “my red hair.”

So the typically composed Reid broke character by unleashing something between a growl and a snarl at Kelce during the Eagles game in November. Stunningly, he could be seen blocking Kelce’s helmet back from an equipment man, who was trying to return it after Kelce spiked it on the sideline in that Christmas Day debacle against the Raiders.

And we shudder to imagine Reid’s reaction if Kelce had done what he (perhaps jokingly) said he was going to do last Sunday in Baltimore in the wake of a pre-game tiff with Baltimore kicker Justin Tucker. On “The Pat McAfee Show,” Kelce said he and Patrick Mahomes were ready to take a 15-yard taunting penalty if Tucker had missed a fourth-quarter field goal.

Mahomes played along during a pop-in on that show. But on Thursday, somewhat reminiscent of his quick action to pull Kelce away from the podium at the White House last summer, Mahomes clarified that he was ready “to chase Travis and just get him back to the sideline. That would probably have been the best decision.”

So, yes, even at 34, Kelce still bridles some.

Whatever complications that dynamic might yet pose for Reid, though, Reid also understands something vital:

All the showmanship and even times of acting out is indivisible from the lifeblood of Kelce, who now is the leading receiver in NFL postseason history after one of the best playoff performances of his career helped catapult the Chiefs into Super Bowl LVIII against San Francisco on Feb. 11 in Las Vegas.

And that pulsating emotion is more a part of the heartbeat of this team than meets the eye, a fact perhaps overshadowed by Kelce’s transcendent play and the comedic stylings you’ve witnessed in his Beastie Boys bit or “New Heights” podcast or on “Saturday Night Live.” To say nothing of how his relationship with Taylor Swift has become an international story that in some ways eclipses his role with the team.

“Listen, Travis is always fired up; he’s always fired up. But with the playoffs, he’s even more so,” Reid said after Kelce had 11 catches for 116 yards and a touchdown in last weekend’s 17-10 victory over the Ravens. “I never worry about him being ready to go. He’s always right there and just brings that emotion to the guys, that just secure feeling that we’re going to go get this thing no matter what.”

Because of all the contagious energy that comes with that, not to mention the Pro Football Hall of Fame productivity and the character it’s taken to keep it going through injuries this season, Reid tends to give Kelce more slack than flak.

Like last week in Baltimore when, as linebacker Drue Tranquill recalled it, Reid was speaking to the team either before the game or at halftime.

“And Travis would just cut him off with a big yell,” Tranquill said. “And (Reid) would say, ‘Ah, that sounds about right. Let’s go.’”

When I asked Kelce on Friday about that moment, he smiled and said, “I don’t think I was cutting (Reid) off. I think I was maybe beating him to the punch.”

Less subject to interpretation is Kelce’s appreciation of Reid in the making of his career after his collegiate days at Cincinnati were marked most by “having a little too much fun off the field,” as Kelce last year told The Star’s Sam McDowell.

As Kelce considered his relationship with his coach on Friday, he thought about how Reid both has given him rein and reeled him in to harness the best of him.

“He’s helped me learn while showing my personality, my passion, my energy for the game, all while trying to channel that professionalism to not hurt the team,” he said. “Without a doubt, I’ve been fortunate. And I think Coach Reid does it better than anybody.”

He could have been speaking about any number of the attributes of Reid, the fourth-winningest coach in NFL history. But in this case the reference was to Reid’s uncanny ability to process how to bring out the best in his players ... and recognizing their context in the locker room.

Because of his superlative play, charisma, resilience through injuries and brotherly touches, such as hugging Kadarius Toney as the two were walking off the field after the New England game, Kelce has the stature for a voice.

And he has the vocals to maximize that, as he visibly demonstrated virtually locker to locker after the Ravens game but perhaps applies more influentially out of the limelight.

Citing “the wise words of (former NFL star) Marshawn Lynch,” Tranquill said Kelce is “about that action.”

Including that as much as anyone else, particularly this postseason, he sets the tempo and tone in practice.

“It’s real,” Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy said. “The energy that he brings is so contagious … When he brings that energy, people just feed off it. It’s not easy to do that every day in practice.”

Especially through an injury-speckled season that featured some ups and downs and diminished production from 110 catches for 1,338 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2022 to 93 receptions for 984 yards and five TDs in 2023.

Even if the statistics would have been closer to the same if Kelce hadn’t played in two fewer games (missing the opener because of a knee injury and sitting out the finale to rest), he acknowledged that the season had worn him down despite the fact he had dealt with what he called “more serious” injuries in the past.

“This year I think the fact that we weren’t winning kind of piled up on how I was feeling physically,” he said. “And you can just catch yourself in, I don’t know, just like a darker room, I guess, if that makes sense.”

Even out of the darkness, though, Kelce cast light.

“We have to, like, get him out of practice just to get him a rest,” Mahomes said. “He wants to be out there for every single play. And I think that mindset, when you see the Hall of Fame tight end, and he wants to be the guy working the hardest, it raises everybody’s standard.

“It raises the standard of how you practice. It raises the standards of how you prepare. Because you know that guy that’s done it at the top level wants to continue to do it every single week, every single day, and at the same time has a great time doing it.

“And I think that shows that you can work extremely hard and still have fun coming to work every single day.”

Just the same, maybe the best thing that happened to Kelce was to be convinced to sit out the regular-season finale against the Chargers, when he needed just 16 yards to amass his eighth straight 1,000-yard season.

While he dropped three passes against Miami in the cruel arctic conditions of the playoff opener, he has 23 catches for 262 yards and three touchdowns in this year’s three postseason games. For perspective, he had 23 catches in the previous five games for 252 yards with no touchdowns.

And last Sunday in Baltimore, he flashed more spring and burst than had been apparent much of the season.

“It wasn’t like his mind wasn’t there, but you could just see his body wasn’t … moving the way that it always moves,” Mahomes said, later adding, “I think just having more time from when the original injuries kind of happened, you could see now his body was getting back.”

Along with the personality that’s never left — something Reid knows is inseparable from Kelce’s greatness, even if he still is managing it.