The past few years have been insane for Travis Kelce. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end has won three Super Bowls, hosted Saturday Night Live, and has been in a relationship with Taylor Swift for the past year.

That being said, people have jumped all over him not putting up the same insane stats this year that he normally has. After 15 games in 2024 (so not counting his prolific performance on Christmas Day, as this article is touching on comments made before that game), Kelce had 89 catches for 739 yards and just two touchdowns. People will see those numbers and point to Kelce clearly slowing down but former Patriots and Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski doesn’t see it that way.

While appearing on Up & Adams, Gronkowski was asked about Kelce’s performance this year. He talked about how it’s interesting how Kelce is older than Patrick Mahomes because oftentimes, the quarterback is older than his main receiver/tight end (and uses him and Tom Brady as an example of this). He says that makes what the two have accomplished together even more impressive.

Gronk then said that he thinks Kelce could play another two years and doesn’t buy that this is a down year for the Chiefs tight end.

“The guy has 85 plus catches. We’re talking that his stats are down, are you kidding me? I just looked at ’em. Eighty plus catches this year! How are your stats down if you have 80 plus catches at 35 years old? I think I’ve only had 80 plus catches one time in my career and I was 22 years old, I had 90 catches that year. All the other years I was like 50 to 70 catches so like that 80 plus, he’s a security blanket.”

Gronkowski made a great point here. Yes, Kelce’s overall yards and touchdowns are down from what Chiefs fans and the rest of the NFL is used to seeing but he’s still making it count with his reception total. It’s also been hard for him to make too much of an impact considering defenses double and triple-team him each week. They’ve made it clear that they want to take Kelce out of the game and force Mahomes to target other receivers.

On Gronk’s 80+ catches note, Kelce has accomplished that feat nine times in his career. The only years he didn’t hit the 80-catch mark were in 2014 and 2015. Gronkowski had over 80 catches twice in his career, the 90-reception season he alluded to in his comments during the 2011 season and then he had 82 catches in 2014.

Considering that Gronkowski is a future Hall of Fame tight end and was once the only tight end in the league better than Kelce, hearing his argument for why this isn’t a down year for Kelce should speak volumes.