Tammy Ljungblad/[email protected]
Tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Travis Kelce wants to do better.
This was the message of a tweet sent out Saturday afternoon. It came after Kelce fought with a defensive teammate for the second straight Chiefs practice.
Kelce tweeted at 12:29 p.m., “Gotta be a better teammate, gotta be a better leader… plain and simple.”
On Saturday, Kelce got angry when linebacker Jack Cochrane tried to take the ball away from him after he caught a touchdown pass. Kelce hit Cochrane in response, so they had to be pulled apart.
The day before, Kelce and cornerback Dicaprio Bootle fought similarly after the play. Kelce caught a pass and ran upfield when the whistle blew. Bootle still got in his way and blocked his path, so the two players shoved each other until safety Bryan Cook came to break it up.
Coach Andy Reid didn’t seem to find it funny when asked about the fight between Kelce and Bootle on Friday.
“It’s a waste of time to fight. It gets you kicked out of games. “It hurts you to do it out here,” Reid said on Friday. “But they’ll fight. It’s hot and sticky. They will fight a little bit. As long as no one throws punches, we’ll be fine. They will talk for a while. That takes place.”
Kelce is 33 years old his 11th year with the Chiefs. The player who will be in the Hall of Fame had 110 catches, 1,338 receiving yards, and 12 touchdowns last season. He has been to the Pro Bowl eight times.
After his fight with Kelce, Bootle seemed to deal with some problems the next day. When receiver Richie James caught a pass over him during 7-on-7 drills on Saturday, James teased him with the ball and signaled for him to come to get it before walking into the end zone.
After talking back and forth for about a minute about what had happened, James put his arm around Bootle on the sidelines and kept talking to him.