As Patrick Mahomes gears up to play his 10th season in Kansas City with Travis Kelce, the Chiefs quarterback reflected on what makes his superstar tight end so special.
“Obviously he has the physical gifts; to go out there and be that size with that speed and elusiveness and catch the football,” Mahomes, 30, said Wednesday, July 15, on Yahoo! Sports Daily. “But I think what makes him who he is — the leader, the person that he is — the teammates around him want him to succeed because he’s going to give everything he has to the guys around him.”
Mahomes added, “When you have one of the best football players on your football team being that selfless and just wanting to win no matter what, it kind of motivates everybody else to be great. I think that’s something that makes him special. Every teammate you ask is going to say [Kelce] is their favorite teammate because of the person that he is.”
With Kelce’s upcoming 14th NFL season likely to be his last, Mahomes was asked if he feels pressure to win one more Super Bowl before the future Hall of Famer definitively hangs up his cleats.
“I always have a win-now mentality,” Mahomes explained. “You never know when it’s going to be your last chance. You never know when it’s going to be your last game. You never know when it’s going to be the best team you’ve ever played on or not.”
He continued, “I always try to maximize it. I live by having no regrets by the end of my career. That’s how my mentality is. You never know when’s your best opportunity to win the Super Bowl, to win the division, or whatever that is. Just go out there and maximize it.”
Kelce, 36, was seen returning to training in Florida on Thursday, July 16, less than two weeks after he married Taylor Swift. The Chiefs officially open training camp on July 29 at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, Missouri.
The upcoming season comes with plenty of uncertainty for Mahomes, too, as the quarterback continues to recover from a torn ACL and LCL in his left leg in December 2025.
“It’s a long process,” he told Yahoo!. “I think that’s what I’ve learned throughout this entire thing. All I can do is be as great as I can be every single day. You just have to maximize that day and then slowly get better and better as the year goes on.”
Still, Mahomes vowed he plans to be ready for Week 1 of the regular season on September 14, when the Chiefs host the Denver Broncos.
“I can’t predict the future and I know that it’s a long process,” he said. “It’s not just my decision. But at the same time, I’m going to give the doctors and the coaches every single opportunity they can to let me be out there Week 1. I don’t want to miss that game.”
