Former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers TE Rob Gronkowski has announced his retirement from the NFL (again). Should he stay retired this season, it could put Kansas City Chiefs TE Travis Kelce in the driver’s seat to surpass Gronk on the all-time leaderboard for tight ends.
In 13 fewer regular-season games played, Kelce already has more targets (994), receptions (704), first downs (476), receptions per game (5.5) and average receiving yards per game (70.9). He needs to catch up on a few other key statistics, though.
Kelce and Gronk were the only two active players currently competing for a spot in the top-5 leaderboards in terms of career receiving yards. Kelce has just 280 fewer career receiving yards compared to Gronk’s 9,286 yards, which rank fifth all-time among tight ends behind Shannon Sharpe, Antonio Gates, Jason Witten and Tony Gonzalez. Kelce should knock that out to move into fifth all-time in the first few games of the season, but he can also pass Sharpe (9,961) if he records what would be a seventh consecutive 1,000-yard receiving season.
