Last week we talked with Kansas City Chiefs OC Brad Childress who indicated that Chiefs TE Ross Travis was still working on his blocking skills. That’s understandable considering he’s coming from a basketball and not football background.
After watching Travis in the first preseason game, Chiefs coach Andy Reid said that he was actually impressed with the run blocking skills of Travis.
“He did a pretty good job on the run game, which I didn’t think would necessarily be his strength,” Reid said. “I’m not telling you that he’s a blow up run blocker. I thought he handled himself well with it.”
The Chiefs are pretty versatile at tight end. Travis Kelce and Demetrius Harris can both block with Kelce obviously being more advanced as a pass catcher. The Chiefs employed multiple tight end sets with the first team offense, which I love. Those sets give them so much versatility and Alex Smith has had some success with them.
I would go ahead and pencil Travis in as your third tight end. He was already listed there on the depth chart and Saturday’s performance didn’t seem to change anything for the negative.