Chiefs' Travis Kelce admits he got away with obvious penalty on key play during Week 1 win over Broncos

Kelce admitted on his podcast that officials missed an obvious holding penalty on Patrick Mahomes' opening touchdown run against the Broncos

Sep 17, 2026 at 12:12 pm ET • 2 min read

If you're an NFL fan who thinks that the Kansas City Chiefs seem to get away with everything, then you're definitely not going to like what Travis Kelce had to say on the latest edition of the New Heights podcast. 

During a conversation with his brother, Jason, Travis was recapping everything that happened during the Chiefs' 31-10 win over the Denver Broncos in Week 1. At one point, the two guys started talking about the first touchdown of the game, which was a 15-yard run by Patrick Mahomes, a play that should have been called back. 

Near the end of the run, Travis grabbed Denver's Talanoa Hufanga by the neck, which should have led to a holding penalty being called, but no flag was thrown and the touchdown counted. During the podcast, Travis admitted that he probably should have been flagged. 

"It was definitely a questionable play," Travis said. "That's one of those where you get up slowly like, 'Please don't be any laundry on the field.' I had the man up by his neck. Can't do it. Can't do it, almost cost us. And to be honest, that would've been Patrick Mahomes' second rushing touchdown called back in two plays, he literally did the same thing [on the prior play].

During the broadcast, ESPN's Troy Aikman even noted that Travis probably "got away with a hold." 

After Aikman was done talking, ESPN rules analyst Russell Yurk said he agreed that a penalty flag should have been thrown. The touchdown came on a second-and-goal from Denver's 15-yard line, so a holding penalty would have made it even more challenging for the Chiefs to score on what was their opening drive of the game. 

"That would've taken us out of the red zone," Travis said of the penalty. "That was risky business right there. You know what? Sometimes you're just living right."

The Mahomes touchdown gave Kansas City an early 7-0 lead. As Travis noted, Mahomes appeared to score one play earlier. The Chiefs had second-and-goal from the 5-yard line and Mahomes ran into the end zone, but Kansas City got called for holding, which took them back to the 15-yard line. On the very next play, Mahomes scored again, and this time, the TD counted, despite the fact that Travis was clearly holding. 

If you've spent any time on the internet, you may have noticed that there are a lof fans out there who seem to think that NFL officials show bias toward the Chiefs and this probably won't help that. 

If this had been a closer game, the missed call probably would have been a bigger controversy, but with the Chiefs winning by three touchdowns, it wasn't something the Broncos really complained about after the game. The Broncos lost because they couldn't tackle Kenneth Walker III (23 carries for 173 yards), not because of the holding no-call on Travis, but it's still not a great look for officials to miss such an obvious call.