Who is the Travis Kelce heir should he retire this offseason? Noah Gray, Jared Wiley, or (player not on roster)?
Travis Kelce is 6'5 250 and 35 years old. Even if he doesn't retire, he's not playing the same way he did when he was 30. So the Chiefs may need to make contingency plans next year and we should do the same, given how Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid utilize the TE position.
Noah Gray is 6'3 240 and has been performing very well at the end of 2024. He's the 6th highest ranked TE on PFF. He's been getting ~60% of snaps while Kelce is getting ~80-90%, so if Kelce retires this number could go up. In the last 5 weeks he has 5 TD's and 18 receptions. Could he be in line to take the Kelce role?
Jared Wiley was a 4th round rookie who was seeing ~20% of snaps before he went out for the year with an ACL injury. He had a very impressive athletic framework with 9.52 RAS at 6’6 250 pounds. Considering Andy Reid doesn't usually play rookies much and TE's take long to develop, do we think Wiley has a shot to pop in a year or two after he recovers from injury?
Or is the TE of the future not on the roster yet? The 2025 TE class is strong, with some experts predicting up to 6 TE's taken in the first 2-3 rounds. There are some moderately interesting TE free agents in Mike Gesicki and Juwan Johnson but not likely those guys will make a huge difference. Or, last option, is Travis Kelce the GOAT (arguably) and no one should expect production from the next TE to be anywhere near what Kelce's has been for the past 5 years?