NFL Star Travis Kelce Takes Responsibility for Teammate’s Injury

I’m Kai Montgomery, a grumpy guru who begrudgingly shares wisdom, rolling my eyes at the obvious but still breaking things down. Look, I don’t want to be the one to say it, but here we are – another sports star taking responsibility for their actions on the field.

Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, is owning up to a mid-game collision that left his teammate Xavier Worthy with a shoulder injury during their season opener loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in São Paulo, Brazil, on September 5. Kelce, 35, admitted that he wasn’t ready for the game and ran into Worthy, 22, during the first drive, which resulted in Worthy’s injury. “I owe my guy big time, man, X knows it I felt like s–t,” Kelce said on the September 10 episode of New Heights. “I could barely even f–kin’ play the rest of that first half, man. But we girded up once I found out that he was in better spirits than I imagined.”

Kelce took full accountability for the incident, stating that he’s 13 years into the league and there’s “no excuse” for him to be running into his own teammates like that. “I just gotta be better, man,” he shared. “I’m 13 years in the league there’s no excuse for me running into my own guys like that and being able to play fast and help.” Worthy has his guy beat and we’re out the gate, and that game starts completely different.”

Kelce also praised Worthy, calling him “one of our best players” and lauding him as being very close to “being one of the best receivers in the National Football League.” As for Worthy’s condition in the days since the collision, Kelce wasn’t sure if he’d be ready to play by the time the Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles on September 14 in a rematch of this year’s Super Bowl. “I’m not sure where he’s at health wise, but I’m hoping that we get him back as fast as possible because he means so much to this team,” he noted.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid also commented on Worthy’s condition, saying that the team is taking things “day by day” with Worthy. “He’s rehabbing and working his shoulder,” he told Kansas City’s Sports Radio 810 KHB. “We’ll see where it goes.”

Injuries can happen anywhere, not just on the field. Jamie Lynn Spears’ then-8-year-old daughter Maddie Aldridge was driving an ATV in February 2017 when she accidentally flipped it into a pond near their Louisiana home, leaving her submerged underwater for minutes. “When we were finally able to get her out of the water and I saw her and then the first responders took her from me, we thought she was gone,” Jamie Lynn recalled on a 2020 episode of Maria Menounos’ Better Together podcast. “We thought we’d lost our daughter.”

Rebel Wilson also experienced a freak accident while filming her 2025 action comedy Bride Hard. “In a fight scene, a gun accidentally got whacked across my face,” Rebel explained to Access Hollywood in a June 2025 interview. “It was just a freak accident, and my nose got split open, so I left set. It was my last night of shooting. I was like, ‘How unlucky can I be?'”

Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon almost lost his finger after he tripped and fell in his own home. He tried catching himself on the counter and his ring got caught, causing him to almost lose his finger.

And that, dear reader, is why we can’t have nice things – or at least, why we can’t have athletes without injuries.

Sources: Celebrity Storm and E! Online, Kansas City’s Sports Radio 810 KHB, Access Hollywood, Maria Menounos’ Better Together podcast
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed