Yeah - he's looked like he's playing at 80% since about week 3. He's just getting beat to hell and it's clearly taking a toll on him.

And hell, he's just a little older than he used to be. If the game's requiring him to expend more energy to stay at the same level he was once able to cruise at, he'll have a few more errors as a result.

But yeah, more than anyone, Kelce could use a break. Seems like he gets up slow and trudges back to the huddle on every snap at this point.

He's got good straight line speed but he's not very quick. That's why you'll see him on kick returns and not punt returns.

I'm not even sure he has good straight line speed.

On kick returns he plays fast because he's just decisive. He picks his gap and hits it as soon as he has the ball in his hands.

Someone like Hughes looks genuinely explosive with the ball in his hands. But if Hughes is more to the 'Dante Hall' side of the spectrum, leaning on acceleration and agility, Pringle is clearly on the 'Tamarik Vanover' side in that he's gonna pick a spot and go. He'll rely on a little physicality to get past the first line and then hope he maintains enough momentum to get the edge and go.

Yep

He's 32 years old, and has been playing an average of about 17 games per year (including playoffs). He gets the really tough assignments over the middle taking a pounding game after game. That shit eventually catches up to you. I'm absolutely amazed at how resilient and consistent he has been over his career. Dude is a bit of a freak.

mahommes made a helluva an effort to take him down

I mentioned it after I watched the Aaron Hernandez documentary. The shots these TEs take are just unreal.

I'm not going to excuse anything Hernandez did - guy was all about that life as far back as High School and I don't think football turned him into who he became. But man, watching that documentary and the dozen or so clips they showed of him over the middle - plays that seem benign from TV are just absolute trainwrecks for those guys.

They're in that unhappy middle where they're moving fast enough to generate momentum but not fast enough to get into space. And invariably TEs are big men getting hit by other big men at fairly high speeds.

I can't think of a position that takes the kind of abuse those guys take. And the ones that are able to just keep ticking like Kelce and Tony Gonzalez just amaze the hell out of me. Even a tank like Gronk seemed to always miss a game or two a year simply through getting the shit beat out of them. But Kelce just keeps chugging along, averaging right at 90% of his teams offensive snaps over the 7 years since he's become a full-time starter. That's awfully impressive.

The league sees guys like George Kittle have huge years then struggle to stay healthy and duplicate that every few years. Guys like Zach Ertz come and go all the time. But guys like Kelce, Tony G, Greg Olson and Jason Witten are pretty rare birds. The game's designed to grind guys like that into a fine powder but some of them just refuse to sit down.

Agreed. And what he was doing against the Faid looked like it sucked worse. Get up, give a hard blow to the DE, keep your balance, turn around quick as hell because the balls coming right now so Mahomes doesn't die, catch the ball, run 8 yards, get blasted by a LB.

**** I was tired just watching that.

And it was the only game where he still seemed to have any energy left when the clock hit zeroes.

I agree - that game had to be brutal for him.

It just shows you how much of it's a mindset thing for these iron horse types. He had to be exhausted but he was involved and active in the game, the Chiefs were feeling it and he walked off the field like he was fresh as a daisy.

The mind over matter that has to take is pretty incredible.

I'm not sure if it's legit but he's got an NFL combine profile on NFL.com. Apparently he ran a 4.46, which is decent speed for a guy who's around 6'1" 205.

Agreed on being decisive, though. He never does the East-West or stutter stepping shit, which I like. Plus he runs through arm tackles pretty well.

That boy brings his lunch bucket to work with him, he's a baller!