The Kansas City Chiefs suffered a scary bad loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 59 on February 9, 2025, and that of course includes their tight end/professional pop star’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce. Travis had a mediocre season and a pretty abysmal biggest game day of the year, catching a whopping four balls in the Super Bowl, none of which were in the first half, and none of which resulted in a touchdown. Yikes! On top of the on-field misery for the Chiefs, Travis’ (and his suspiciously long head of hair) status for biggest NFL hottie has been officially voted by the good people of America over to Eagles’ quarterback Jalen Hurts. (I mean, how could you not love a king with a perfect smile, a GF who doesn’t get booed when she steps into the stadium, and common sense when it comes to politics?) Safe to say, it was a bad game, but was it bad enough to quit football forever? Here’s everything Travis Kelce has said about retirement.

Travis Kelce Retirement Rumors

Is Travis Kelce retiring after Super Bowl 59?

According to Travis, hopefully not, but it’s not impossible. During the press week leading up to the big game, Travis told reporters that in three years he saw himself “Hopefully still playing football” because he felt that he “still [has] a lot of good football left.” But then, clearly one for the dramatics, Travis added “We’ll see what happens. I know I’ve been setting myself up for other opportunities in my life. That’s always been the goal, knowing that football only lasts for so long.”

In a January 15 appearance on Stephen A. Smith’s show, Travis claimed his opinion on retirement “changes every single day” so take his intentionally vague comments with a grain of salt. In the same month, his bestie and fellow SB loser, Patrick Mahomes, told an interviewer that if Travis had plans to bail from balling, “He hasn’t said anything to [Patrick]” about it.

After their truly brutal blowout loss to the Birds, Travis refused to face the press (guess he was feeling shy!). But Patrick Mahomes said that Travis planned to “spend some time with his family and make that decision on his own,” the decision in question being whether or not to keep playing for the Chiefs. Travis did tell his family (his brother Jason, on their podcast) in December 2024 that he felt like he would be experiencing some “lasts” in his NFL career over the next few years.

Does Taylor Swift want Travis to quit the NFL?

Travis told Stephen A. Smith that his Reputation ringmaster has only encouraged him to “enjoy playing this game.” That seems pretty obvious given the amount of screentime Taylor has managed to hoard at NFL games across the country ever since they started dating. Just spitballing here, but with the way Taylor loves their quarterback/cheerleader vibe, I doubt she’s rooting for early retirement.

When is Travis Kelce’s contract up?

In April 2024, Travis signed a two-year, $34.25 million deal that contracts him through the 2025 season. This means in order to retire now, he would have to break said contract and risk forgoing some of the promised salary.

How old is Travis Kelce?

Travis is 35 which in human years is very young, but in professional athlete years is not far away from reasonable retirement territory, especially for tight ends.

What is Travis Kelce going to do after football?

Travis mentioned he’s been teeing up multiple streams of income post-NFL, which is what any smart player has to do. He could be considering pursuing acting full-time (lol) after Travis’ role in a Ryan Murphy spinoff. It’s also speculated that Travis may propose to his billionaire girlfriend (though he didn’t get to do it under winner’s confetti as rumored, bummer) so maybe he could give stay-at-home fiance a try? Sounds like a much easier gig than being flung around by the Eagles’ O line.