Travis Kelce estimates between 50-80 percent of NFL players use cannabis

Travis Kelce nearly had his football career derailed by one night on Bourbon Street in the Big Easy as he partied before the Sugar Bowl. Yet his own cautionary tale no longer is relevant in the NFL.

The key Travis Kelce moment came in late 2009. Kelce, then a redshirt freshman, was a tight end for the Cincinnati Bearcats. And his team was enjoying the perks of an undefeated college regular season. A night in the French Quarter was a must.

“I was down in New Orleans, listening to Lil Wayne, and I wanted to smoke what he was smoking,” Kelce told Vanity Fair. Then boom, the NCAA did a random drug test. Kelce tested positive for marijuana and the penalty was severe. The NCAA suspended him for the bowl game and the upcoming season.

However, 13 years later, these sorts of draconian drug suspensions don’t happen anymore. Travis Kelce estimated that as many as 50 to 80 percent of NFL players are using marijuana to treat pain or anxiety. And they no longer need to worry that much about testing. In 2021, the league began testing only once a year. The tests are conducted during a two-week window at the start of preseason training camp.

“If you just stop in the middle of July, you’re fine,” Travis Kelce says. “A lot of guys stop a week before (camp) and they still pass because everybody’s working out in the heat and sweating their tail off. Nobody’s really getting hit for it anymore.”

Other NFL players have shared similar usage estimates, with one former star even upping the number. Former NFL tight end Martellus Bennett thought that roughly 90 percent of league players used cannabis products.

After suspension, Travis Kelce moved in with big brother, Jason

Travis Kelce’s one-year suspension is a chapter in his career story. And the memories of what unfolded in New Orleans after that drug test 13 years ago still are vivid in Kelce’s mind. The drug test happened on New Year’s Eve. Knowing you’re about to test positive wasn’t the greatest ways to usher in a new year.

“I’m just sitting there, dead in the water,” Kelce said. “I just wanted to get out of there. I was so embarrassed, I didn’t want to look at anybody.”

He called his paents. Ed Kelce, Travis’ dad, gave him some good advice.

“I told him it’s a great learning opportunity. Live with it. Grow from it. Learn from it. It is what it is, and you just have to deal with it now,” Ed Kelce told Vanity Fair. “All the while, I’m biting my tongue about how stupid it is that they’re going to suspend a college kid for smoking pot. Give me a fxxking break.”

Travis Kelce moved in with his older brother, Jason, who was an offensive lineman with Cincinnati, and several other teammates. Jason, the future Philadelphia Eagles, told his brother he was going to know everything he’s doing.

“I’m a big believer that what you end up doing and becoming comes down to who you surround yourself with,” Jason Kelce told Vanity Fair. “We weren’t choirboys in that house. We drank, we had fun, we enjoyed the college experience. But all of the guys in that house were incredibly committed to the team and to being the best football players they could be.”

As we head into the 2023 season, Travis Kelce is making the case that he could be the best tight end in NFL history. It’s odd to think that a now obsolete law could’ve stalled out everything.