Mahomes And Kelce Become Most Prolific QB-TE Duo

If you were to put together a ranking of the greatest security blankets in history, a clear No. 1 might be the piece of cloth that was Linus Van Pelt's constant companion during the 30-plus-year run of "Peanuts" comic strips and cartoons.

After all, not only did the blanket provide him security, he was also able to reshape it into such disparate things as a cummerbund, fly swatter, hammock and, most famously, a shepherd's headdress, which he donned in 1965's "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

In identifying a runnerup to Linus' security blanket, you could do a lot worse than nominating Travis Kelce for the role he has played since 2018 as quarterback Patrick Mahomes' security blanket in the Kansas City Chiefs' offense.

The proof behind that selection became tangible on Sunday in Arrowhead Stadium when Mahomes found Kelce for a 38-yard gain with the Chiefs leading 21-12 during the third quarter of their eventual 35-12 defeat of the New York Jets.

That gave Kelce 67 yards receiving in the game and 9,360 yards in his career with Mahomes throwing the ball, which moved the duo into the top spot past the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers' Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates, who previously held the yardage record for QB-TE pairs with 9,352.

It is also notable that Mahomes and Kelce broke the record while playing in the eighth game of their ninth season together, while Rivers and Gates needed 14 complete seasons to establish the record. Sitting in third on the QB-TE yardage list are Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who needed 11 full season to reach 9,186 yards.

Indeed, of the 133 games that Mahomes has started at quarterback for the Chiefs since he became the full-time signal-caller at the outset of the 2018 season, Kelce has been on the field with him in 132 of those games.

Mahomes has also been the one slinging the ball for 9,360 of the 13,484 career regular-season receiving yards (69.4%) that Kelce has compiled, along with the majority of his 1,113 catches at the tight end position, both of which are NFL records.

After five straight 1,000-yard-plus receiving yards with Mahomes from 2018-22, Kelce's numbers did begin to slide a bit in 2023 and 2024, especially his yards-per-catch, which dipped to 8.5 in 2024, but he has experienced a renaissance of sorts through eight games this season.

His 33 catches and 482 yards put him on pace for 70 grabs and 1,024 yards, good for a robust 14.6-yards-per-catch average, which would be a career high.

While Kelce may not be able to morph into a cummerbund, hammock or shepherd's headdress, he has been able to fill the role of first-down maven (his 752 first-down catches are most ever for a TE), red-zone magnet (62 TD catches with Mahomes at the helm) and all-around record-setting partner for Mahomes for the past nine years as the Chiefs have given their fans a golden age of Super Bowl-winning football.