NFL1000: Has Travis Kelce Dethroned Gronk as the NFL’s Best Tight End?

2016 has been a bit of a wasteland for NFL tight ends.

Rob Gronkowski, the consensus personification of the position, succumbed to injuries in early December and would miss the rest of the season. Martellus Bennett, acquired by the New England Patriots to give them the perfect 1-2 punch with Gronk, has been dealing with his own injury issues and has just 14 catches for 164 yards in his last six games.

The Cincinnati Bengals’ Tyler Eifert was placed on injured reserve this week, per Jim Owczarski of Cincinnati.com. The Seattle Seahawks’ Jimmy Graham has been somewhat productive, but he remains inexplicably hidden in the team’s game plan, especially in the red zone (which was the reason the Seahawks traded a first-round pick and their starting center to get him in the first place).

There are a few year-to-year stalwarts like the Carolina Panthers’ Greg Olsen, Dallas Cowboys’ Jason Witten, Washington’s Jordan Reed and the Tennessee Titans’ Delanie Walker, but very few tight ends have run the table for their offenses this season, which makes the recent exploits of Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce all the more remarkable.

Kelce is playing at a level unmatched by anyone at his position this season. You’d have to go back a few years to find an equivalent disparity in production between one man and the rest of the pack.

Kelce’s most recent six-game stretch, in which the Chiefs have posted a 4-2 record—the two losses are by identical 19-17 scores to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Titans—finds him with ridiculous levels of production, especially compared to every other tight end in the league.

From Week 11 through 16, he’s been targeted 56 times with 42 receptions for 651 yards (15.5 yards per reception), 392 yards after the catch, one touchdown and six missed tackles forced. Among tight ends taking at least 50 percent of their team’s snaps, Kelce leads all at the position in each of those categories.

The yardage stat is particularly spectacular. Consider that Kelce’s 392 yards after the catch exceeds the second-most productive tight end in the last six weeks, the Philadelphia Eagles’ Zach Ertz, who has 375 yards total.

So, what makes Kelce so special? When the Chiefs took him out of Cincinnati in the top of the third round of the 2013 draft, they knew they were getting a “big receiver” prototype—another in the new breed of tight ends who spend far more time outside the formation than in-line, making blocking a priority.

Over the last four seasons, Kelce has put some effort into his blocking, and there are some examples of him springing gaps for Kansas City’s running backs and all-purpose shredder Tyreek Hill.

But when you have a weapon like this—a 6’5”, 255-pound receiver with outstanding route awareness, the ability to read and react to defenses, the strength to blow up defensive intent and the cut speed to leave defenders in the dust—you use him for the designed purpose, which is to wreck opposing game plans.

Here are a few examples of how Kelce has wrecked those plans over the last few weeks, and why he’s as important to the 11-4 Chiefs’ playoff progress as anyone on the roster.

This is the 80-yard touchdown Kelce scored against the Denver Broncos defense on Sunday. It’s an excellent example of two important principles in head coach Andy Reid’s offense: Kelce’s ability to …

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