How do you handle a high-profile team member who can’t perform the way they once did? Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid just gave the perfect answer to that question about the team’s most famous player, tight end Travis Kelce. His approach to managing Kelce is just about perfect. It’s something every leader can learn from.
Kelce is considered a future Hall-of-Famer, and possibly the best tight end currently in the league. He has a growing career as an actor and entertainer, he co-hosts an insanely popular podcast with his brother Jason, and of course he’s engaged to Taylor Swift. He’s also having a birthday today. He’s now 36 years old.
Though he famously loves celebrations and parties of all kinds, Kelce said on the podcast that he has no desire to celebrate his birthday. “It’s not a good day, it’s just an annoying day for me,” he said.
Kelce’s last season?
Whatever he thinks about birthdays in general, it’s easy to see why he might not want to mark this one. Jason Kelce, a former Philadelphia Eagle and Travis Kelce’s mentor in many ways, retired at 36. Eighteen months ago, Kelce got a contract adjustment from the Chiefs that made him the highest paid tight end in the league. That agreement was for two seasons, and this is the second of those seasons. He briefly considered retiring earlier this year, after a humiliating Super Bowl loss. Put all that together and it seems highly possible that this is Kelce’s last season in the NFL.
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Either way, Reid has to figure out how to make the best use of Kelce while he has him. At a press conference on Monday, Kansas City sportscaster Soren Petro noted that Kelce had been on the field for only 66 percent of the Chiefs’ snaps in last week’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. Petro asked if there was a sweet spot for how often Kelce should play “now in his career?”
Reid’s response took less than 60 seconds, but he managed to make the most important points in his usual low-key way. Every leader should take note of how he did it.
1. He acknowledged Kelce’s hard work.
“I thought he really played well,” Reid said. “In both the run and pass game, I thought he looked strong all the way through.” He added that Kelce was in great shape. “He came back [from the off-season] and he really trained hard and aggressive for this thing.”
2. He noted that Kelce brings intangibles to the team.
“He’s such a big part of it,” Reid continued. “Not only his effort, but just the mentality that he comes into these games with. He’s all-in all the time.”
Kelce is quick to help, encourage, and praise other team members. He’s also been know to fire them up with rousing speeches. Reid didn’t mention Kelce’s fame or that the frequent presence of Swift has raised the public’s interest, not only in the Chiefs, but in football itself. All those things are an asset, in addition to Kelce’s performance as a player.
3. He faced reality.
As the sports site Heavy noted, Kelce has participated in a decreasing number of snaps through this season’s first four games. Reid acknowledged that having him on the field for 66 percent of them was “probably a good area.” And he said, it was his responsibility as coach not to overuse Kelce. “He’d play every play if he had his choice.”
Reid and Kelce are both aware of the uncomfortable truth about professional sports. No matter how much an athlete trains, time catches up with their body. So Kelce can’t be the default target for quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ passes the way he used to be. This is one reason the Chiefs have added other talented receivers, such as Xavier Worthy and Hollywood Brown over the past couple of years.
Good leaders praise star team members whenever it’s appropriate. But they also face those team members’ limitations head on, and figure out how to work around them. That’s what Reid seems to be doing with Kelce. Based on last Sunday’s game, it may be working.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.