Travis Kelce has opened up about his pre-Super Bowl speech that reportedly left teammates in TEARS the night before the game in Las Vegas.
The Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers to earn Kelce his third Super Bowl ring, but much of the pregame chatter was about a remarkable speech that the tight end had given to his fellow players at the team hotel.
While the specific details of what he said have not been released, Kelce spoke for the first time on his New Heights Podcast to reveal more about what happened in the room.
‘I really don’t [want to talk about it],’ he began, before bowing to pressure from his brother Jason and explaining more. ‘Basically, my message was: “We got the formula.” We figured it out.
‘We know when we play our best, when we come out physical, set the tone, and finish the game in control of the pace and the tempo… like we did all second half of the season.
‘I just wanted to come out of that meeting knowing that everyone has my best interests, and my passion… and if you can feed off of that, feed off of that baby. Let’s go out here and play for each other, man.’
Kelce went on to explain that Chiefs head coach Andy Reid would usually recruit the help of the franchise’s former Super Bowl champions to impart some wisdom on the team – but that he went down a different route this year.
‘Coach Reid usually brings out ex-players,’ Kelce noted. ‘At least the first couple of Super Bowls he did that, and he just said, “you know what, I didn’t really have any ex-players to bring in, I think we have guys that have been in the Super Bowl enough, that have played in big enough games… we’ve got all we need here”.’
Travis then revealed that Reid instead asked the three Chiefs players who were on the team for their previous two Super Bowl wins to speak, with Chris Jones and Patrick Mahomes also taking the stage.
‘Chris made sure everyone knew that it’s not always the same team year in, year out,’ Kelce explained. ‘And Pat kind of reiterated what I was saying about going out there and just being us, and not falling off of that, and just playing your tail off, not letting the moment be too big for you.
‘We all left that meeting pretty fired up, pretty jacked up for the game, man.’
‘I feel like I just got in a train wreck, man,’ he joked. ‘That was a physical game. Five quarters of hard-nosed football, it was worth every single discomfort and pain that I woke up to and I couldn’t be happier for the guys, man.
‘Everyone in the Chiefs organization worked so hard for this one and we really rallied together for five quarters. For the second half of the season, we really decided to lock in and that extra work paid off.’
The Chiefs are back in Kansas City on Wednesday for their victory parade around the city, with Kelce expected to take center stage as he so often does.
