{"id":456730,"date":"2026-02-08T17:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T17:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456730\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T17:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T17:22:07","slug":"chiefs-want-travis-kelce-back-but-how-much-are-they-willing-to-pay-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456730\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiefs want Travis Kelce back, but how much are they willing to pay him?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who is set to become a free agent next month, has not said whether he plans to play in 2026 or retire. If he wants to play, the Chiefs want him to keep playing in Kansas City.<\/p>\n<p>Kelce and the team <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/chiefs-hope-to-have-travis-kelce-back-for-2026-plan-to-talk-with-te-following-super-bowl-lx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">have been in touch<\/a> and the Chiefs want him back, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network.<\/p>\n<p>But the real question is how much they\u2019re willing to spend to have him back. Salary cap projections for 2026 have the Chiefs in the <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/overthecap.com\/salary-cap-space\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">worst cap shape in the NFL<\/a>, about $55 million over the cap. They\u2019ll make enough moves to get under the cap before the league year starts in March, but they\u2019re not going to have a lot of money to sign Kelce to a lucrative contract.<\/p>\n<p>And even if they did have the money, it\u2019s not clear how much they\u2019d be willing to spend, simply because Kelce is going to turn 37 this year and isn\u2019t the same player he once was. Kelce averaged a career-worst 50.1 receiving yards per game in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not surprising that the Chiefs want Kelce back. It would be a surprise if they\u2019re willing to keep paying him the $17 million a year he\u2019s been making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who is set to become a free agent next month, has not said&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-456730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}