Travis Kelce Fantasy 2026: Is the Chiefs TE Still Worth a TE9 Price?

Travis Kelce is no longer the best tight end in fantasy, and that is exactly why he is interesting at his price. In 2025 he caught 76 of 108 targets for 851 yards and 5 touchdowns across a full 17 games, an 11.4 points per game line that is still a starting tight end but a long way from the position-breaking ceiling of his peak. The market has him as the TE9 at an overall PPR ADP of 98.7, a mid-round tight end. The question at that price is not whether he is elite. It is whether a durable, high-target possession role in a great offense is worth a TE9 tag, and who else in Kansas City is eating the shares that used to be his.

The role is still full-time

The floor case is straightforward. Kelce played all 17 games and ran an 81.9% snap share, a full-time role that funneled him 108 targets, elite volume for a tight end. He turned that into 76 catches, the kind of steady, chain-moving production that anchors a lineup even in a down week. For a position where most starters are boom-or-bust one-week wonders, a tight end who is on the field every snap and commands triple-digit targets in a Patrick Mahomes offense is a real edge. At a TE9 price, that reliability is most of what you are buying, and it is not nothing.

But the profile is a possession one now

Here is what has changed. Kelce ran a 6.81-yard average depth of target in 2025 with a 17.1% air-yards share and 5.58 yards after the catch per reception, a short, underneath role rather than the seam-stretching weapon he was at his peak. The volume is still there, but the efficiency that turned that volume into 1,300-yard seasons has faded: 851 yards on 108 targets is a lot of catches for modest yardage. That profile is durable, which is why the floor holds, but it also caps the ceiling. You are drafting a high-floor possession tight end, not a difference-maker, and the price should reflect that read rather than nostalgia for the player he used to be.

The red zone is a competition now

This is the part the TE9 tag is really about. Kelce still ran a real red-zone role, 12 red-zone targets and 3 goal-line touches, but he no longer owns that area of the field. Rashee Rice commanded 18 red-zone targets in just 8 games in 2025, more red-zone looks than Kelce in less than half the season, on his way to a 78-target, 571-yard, 5-touchdown line at a short 4.33-yard average depth of target. Rice is the underneath and red-zone target hog now, and he is being drafted as Kansas City's clear alpha at a WR12, overall 22.6 price. That is the single biggest cap on Kelce's touchdown ceiling: the highest-leverage targets in the offense increasingly run through a younger receiver, not the veteran tight end.

The deep shares moved too

It is not only the red zone. Xavier Worthy is the field-stretcher Kansas City did not have in Kelce's prime, running a 22% air-yards share on a 12.93-yard average depth of target with 73 targets across 14 games in 2025, though he carries a Questionable tag worth monitoring into the season. The one tailwind for Kelce is a departure: Marquise "Hollywood" Brown, who ran a 74-target role in Kansas City in 2025, now reads as an Eagle on our data, so a chunk of veteran target volume has left the room. But the shape of the offense is clear. Patrick Mahomes is still throwing it at an 8.1-yard average depth of target with a 13.2% deep rate, and the downfield and red-zone shares are increasingly spread to faster, younger pass-catchers. Kelce gets volume because he is always on the field, not because he is the first read at the stripe.

The receipts, and the read on the price

The record keeps the framing honest. Our graded start/sit calls cleared the line in 18 of 33 on Kelce, a 55% two-season mark, a middling record that fits a tight end who is startable on volume but no longer a set-and-forget weekly lock. That is the whole case in one number: reliable enough to start most weeks, not dominant enough to win them by himself. At a TE9 price you are paying a fair tag for a durable, high-target floor, with the ceiling capped by a red zone Rice now controls and a deep game Worthy stretches. If you want a safe weekly tight end and let someone else chase the position's ceiling, that is a defensible pick. Just draft the 2026 role, not the 2020 highlight reel. Every call and every result is on his player page.