Travis Kelce isn’t afraid of the Bengals: ‘I’ll play ‘em at the Walmart parking lot’

On his “New Heights” podcast, the Kansas City tight end insisted his team wasn’t throwing the Week 18 game.

It isn’t limited to Cincinnati Bengals fans.

Some sportswriters are even spreading the narrative that the Kansas City Chiefs took a dive against the Denver Broncos last Sunday to keep the Bengals out of the playoffs — because the Chiefs were afraid to face them in the postseason.

One such writer is Pulitzer Prize-winning ESPN investigative reporter Don Van Natta Jr.

Given his job title, you would think Van Natta would have… you know… investigated the situation before firing off this opinion. It is not uncommon for NFL teams that are locked into a playoff spot to rest their starters in the season’s final week. Unless the team believes its top players will get rusty from a week off, there is nothing to gain from playing them. Keeping starters off the field prevents them from getting injured in an essentially meaningless game — and also gives young players a chance to show their stuff in a real NFL matchup.

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ first NFL start came in just such a game. For the final regular-season game of his 2017 rookie season (which also happened to be against the Broncos) head coach Andy Reid decided to rest his starting quarterback Alex Smith, giving Mahomes a chance to play.

This is also why fantasy football leagues end in Week 17 rather than Week 18: because so many teams rest their players in the final week that it can ruin the fantasy game’s competitiveness.

The Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles also rested some of their best players in the regular season’s final week. Eagles running back Saquon Barkley only needed 101 yards to beat Eric Dickerson’s all-time single-season rushing record — but head coach Nick Siriani still chose to keep him on the sidelines.

Here’s another problem with this narrative: “taking a dive” usually comes in the final act — like Marlon Brando’s character did in the 1954 film “On The Waterfront,” when the Mafia paid him to go down in the third round of his fight. You also do it in a way that looks like you’re competing to win. No reasonable person thinks that a team resting 21 significant contributors is trying to win the game. Instead, Sunday’s game was a strategic retreat that allowed the Chiefs to rest and consolidate their forces as they prepared an all-out assault on their remaining enemies during the coming weeks.

Besides, who would characterize a 9-8 team as the “dreaded Bengals”? Not the Chiefs.

“I ain’t scared of f*cking nobody,” Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce told his brother Jason during this week’s episode of their “New Heights” podcast.

“I wanted them in the f*cking playoffs,” he continued. “I wanted to slay every dragon one by one — like [in] Mortal Kombat. I don’t even want this to be like we play the lowest seed. Just give me the best teams — AFC, NFC… give me all of them. Mortal Kombat-style, I’ll go through every f*cking one of them, just giving it my best effort. I ain’t scared of a single soul, man.”

If the Bengals want a piece of the Chiefs, Kelce is willing to meet them at any time — in any place.

“I’ll play ‘em at the Wal Mart parking lot,” he declared. “I don’t give a sh*t. We can have our own game in the offseason, where we can really duke it out again. Listen: I love competing against the greatest.”

This mentality was on display in the 2023 postseason, when the 11-6 Chiefs went on the road as underdogs to defeat the Bills and Baltimore Ravens in succession to reach (and win) their second straight Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers.

Ironically, I compared 2023’s postseason run to Mortal Kombat.

Kelce knows what happened during Sunday’s game. He was right there on the sidelines with his teammates, who were “competing their asses off.”

“It wasn’t a fun game to be a part of,” he recalled. “I’m just sitting there on the sideline, like ‘Hey boys! Don’t let this sh*t ruin our f*cking mojo!’

“We’ve got everybody rolling. It’s go-time. We’ve got to flip that switch — and know we’re the biggest, baddest team out there.”

Buckle up, Kansas City. I have a feeling we’re about to watch one of the best teams in history go nuclear in the playoffs.