Chiefs' Travis Kelce shares insights on collision with Xavier Worthy

Pete Grathoff, The Kansas City Star on Sep 10, 2025

Published in Football

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Three plays. That’s all it took for the Chiefs’ season to take an abrupt downturn on Friday night in their loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil.

On the third play of the game, wide receiver Xavier Worthy and tight end Travis Kelce collided. Worthy suffered a shoulder injury and didn’t return to the game. One can only imagine how that might have affected the Chiefs’ offensive plans for the night.

On his "New Heights" podcast, Kelce took the blame for the collision.

“I know it’s kind of sounding like a broken record from last year’s Super Bowl, but that’s on us as leaders, and I’ll take the most accountability myself,” Kelce said of the loss to the Chargers. “I wasn’t ready that first drive, I ran into one of my guys and offed him out of the game. I literally took one of my players out. That’s one of the most frustrating parts, and it’s hard to get your juices back going knowing you just hurt a guy.

“It’s a frustrating, frustrating way to start off the season. It was a frustrating way to start off the game, but you could take some good from that second half. But at the end of the day, man, we’ve just got to be able to win up front, be accountable on the back end and and be able to start fast and finish stronger.”

Travis' brother, Jason Kelce, asked for clarification on whether his brother or Worthy was perhaps out of position.

“I’m supposed to be running my route at depth for Worthy,” Travis said. “So it’s frustrating for me. I was trying to kind of set up my guy to be able to get in a position and it all just happened pretty quick. And I’ve just got to be better, man. I’m 13 years in the league. There’s no excuse for me running into my own guys like that and being able to play fast and help him out.

“Worthy had his guy beat, and we’re out the gate, and that game starts completely different, right? Instead, I’m not sure where he is exactly in terms of health-wise, but I’m hoping that we get him back as fast as possible, because he means so much to this team.”

Travis admitted Worthy was a key part to the Chiefs’ game plan.

“The biggest thing is that he’s one of our best players,” Travis said. “He’s going to take that step into being one of the best wide receivers in the National Football League. And I run into him, and all of a sudden one of the biggest pieces of the game plan is out of the game. One of the fastest guys in the league, and speed kills in this league is ... now they don’t have to worry about that. Thankfully enough, we had (Tyquan) Thornton and Hollywood Brown to be able to step up in those situations.”

Travis feels terrible

Travis admitted the injury took a mental toll on him Friday night.

“I felt like (garbage),” he said. “I could barely even ... play the rest of that first half, man, but we geared it up once I found out that he was in better spirits than I imagined at halftime. So just tried to go back out there and win that thing for him.”

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