Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce revealed that he begged then-Cleveland Browns head coach Rod Chudzinski to pick him ahead of the 2013 NFL Draft during his exclusive interview with GQ published on Tuesday (August 12).

Kelce, 35, who was born in Westlake and attended Cleveland Heights High School, made an emotional plea to play for his hometown team prior to being drafted by the Chiefs.

“I cried in Chud’s office and said, ‘I will f**king die for this city!’ ” Kelce said. “I literally was in tears. I said, ‘I’m sorry I’m getting emotional. I grew up down the street. I would f**king do anything to play for the Cleveland Browns.’ He looked at me like I was insane. I don’t think he’d ever had somebody just pour out their emotions.”

Kelce was instead taken by the Chiefs in the third-round of the 2013 NFL Draft and became one of the best tight ends in NFL history, entering his 13th NFL seasons with 1,004 receptions for 12,151 yards and 77 touchdowns, having won three Super Bowls and been selected as a First-team All-Pro four times, a Second-team All-Pro three times and a Pro Bowler 10 times. The Browns, on the other hand, have struggled, having only made the playoffs twice during that span.

Kelce also revealed that relationship with pop superstar Taylor Swift "kind of just took the f**k off" in the GQ interview.

“Whenever I’m with her, it feels like we’re just regular people,” Kelce said. “When there is not a camera on us, we’re just two people that are in love. It can be perceived as something else because of how much it is talked about and how much we are tracked whenever we do go out, but I would say that it’s as normal of…. It happened very organically even though from a media standpoint it was being tracked. It still happened very organically.”

The interview was published hours before Swift's appearance alongside her boyfriend and his brother, retired former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, on their New Heights podcast set to be released on Wednesday (August 13) night. Swift officially announced her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, in a clip teasing the episode.

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