Is Travis Kelce retiring after Super Bowl 2025? All the hints the Chiefs star has dropped about his NFL future

Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs have just reached their fifth Super Bowl in six years, reigniting speculation that this might be the tight end’s last.

As Kelce is finishing up his twelfth NFL season, many are wondering if a retirement announcement is on its way — especially if he’s able to claim a third consecutive Super Bowl victory. However, Kelce is yet to say anything concrete about retiring publicly.

Earlier this month, on January 15, Kelce admitted during an interview with sports journalist Stephen A Smith that his opinion on retirement “changes every single day.”

“I love everything that I’m doing in this building, but at the end of the day I’m not having that extreme success on the field as I have individually,” Kelce said. “… I’ll reevaluate it like I always do, and I’ll probably tell myself how much I love this thing and I’ll come back next year.”

At the time, he also clarified that his girlfriend, pop sensation Taylor Swift, had not attempted to deter him from playing in the NFL if that was what he wanted.

“She’s fully encouraging me to enjoy playing this game,” Kelce said. “She loves coming to Arrowhead and coming to the games and cheering for me so I got all the support in the world to keep chasing these dreams.”

Although the tight end has not yet explicitly stated whether or not he is retiring, here are some clues that suggest it might come sooner rather than later…

June 2023 — Kelce acknowledges how much he’ll miss playing football

While at the Chiefs mini camp in 2023, Kelce gushed over how lucky he felt to be able to play football in his thirties.

“I love this game,” he said. “I know I’m going to miss it when I’m done playing… I get to play a game for a living at the age of 33, 34 and I think that’s something — you know, I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose that excitement that I had for a game when I was a kid.”

November 2023 — Injuries lead to retirement thoughts

During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Kelce revealed that his eventual retirement would come as a result of the injuries he’s received from his time on the field.

“That’s the only thing I’ve never really been open about,” the tight end said. “The discomfort. The pain. The lingering injuries — the 10 surgeries I’ve had that I still feel every single surgery to this day.”

June 2024 — Travis’s brother Jason shares advice on retirement

The tight end’s older brother Jason retired after playing 13 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles last year. Before Travis entered training camp in June 2024, Jason suggested that this would be the time when his younger brother would figure out when to retire.

“This is when you’re going to start knowing, whenever this time comes, and you need to walk away,” Jason said during an episode of their New Heights podcast. “[It’s] the fighting your body, like, you used to be able to do something you can’t do anymore. That’s when it’s like you’re fighting that, to continue to get that back. That’s when it starts to become hard. Bottom line is everyone knows when it’s time for them.”

Later that month, Travis acknowledged during a press conference that “it’s toward the end of the road [more] than the beginning of it” but he wanted to make sure he had a career after football lined up before retiring.

December 2024 — His last game in Ohio?

In a December 2024 episode of New Heights, Travis said that he likely played his last game in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. “I just love that city, man. It was so fun,” he said, following the Chiefs game against the Cleveland Browns.

Jason and Travis grew up and went to college in nearby Cleveland Heights before their NFL careers.

“I don’t know if it’s the last time I’ll ever play in Cleveland, but it kinda felt like I was just giving it one last hurrah before I’m done because I’ve only played there twice in 12 years,” he told his older brother at the time.

January 2025 — Jason questions how many games Travis has left

On Saturday (January 25), during an episode of They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce, the older Kelce brother discussed his desire to attend both the Eagles game at 3 p.m. ET in Philadelphia and the Chiefs game in Kansas City at 6:30 p.m.

“I’m kinda torn. I wanna be there for the Eagles, I also wanna be there for my brother, I don’t know how many more he has,” he said on the show. “So we’re kind of flying by the seat of our pants. We might be able to see both of us here again hopefully.”