Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce said “it f–king pisses me off” how he played in Sunday’s loss to the Bills, the team’s first defeat of the season.
During the latest installment of his and brother Jason Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast, Travis put it on himself to “get s–t right” after Jason brought up a narrative that the Chiefs let their win streak get in their head.
“You don’t think about, ‘oh, I really want to win this game so I can remain undefeated,’” Travis, 35, said after he had two catches for 8 yards in the 30-21 defeat. “No, we want to win this game because we have a lot of really close football games against the Buffalo Bills and we love f–king competing against them because they’re one of the best teams in the league. I get fired up playing against the best teams in the NFL and I was fired up for this one — and I didn’t play my best.
“That s–t, it f–king pisses me off and it made me go right back into work on Monday after the game and get after it, find a way to make s–t right.”
Travis has turned things around after a slow start with 32 catches — and his only two touchdowns of the season — in the three games before the showdown with the Bills.
Prior to Sunday’s loss, the Chiefs won 15 straight games including playoffs last season, en route to a second straight title when they beat the 49ers in February’s Super Bowl.
That run included a 27-24 win over Buffalo in the Divisional Round of the playoffs after the Bills won a regular season matchup in Kansas City between the two rivals.
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Travis explained that the loss to the Bills changed his team’s perspective moving forward — and Kansas City is confident in their pursuit of a three-peat.
“I think this is something that you won’t see out of us in the future,” he said. “I think we’re very confident we’ll get the things fixed. We have all talent we need to go and win another Super Bowl… I think everybody knows that. All we gotta do is be at our best and that’s we were not for four quarters. I mean there wasn’t a single quarter that we outplayed them.
“… They were fundamentally more sound in a lot of areas and I put that on myself to harp on the fundamentals at practice. Make sure I’m focused, I got all the faith in the world in this team.”
Travis had high praise for Bills quarterback Josh Allen, and explained how he’s a force when he uses his legs.
Allen scored a touchdown on fourth-and-2 with 2:17 left to secure the win and improve to 9-2, atop the AFC East.
“The undefeated thing was cool, but that’s not our ultimate goal,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said in his postgame press conference. “So we’ll keep building toward that.
“That’s a good football team. Nothing to hang your head on losing to them. We feel like we can play better. So we’ll get back to work and try to use this as a spark so we can be a better football team in the end.”
Mahomes finished 23 of 33 for 196 yards with three touchdown passes and two interceptions.
The Chiefs (9-1) face the Panthers (3-7) in Charlotte on Sunday.
The Bills have a bye this week before hosting the 49ers on Dec. 1.