It’s understood that the NFL offseason is a time for all things substantive to silly. There are a lot of column inches (dated journalism term) to fill and only so much actual news to discuss, which means offseason filler can often reach at times—and sometimes even sound ridiculous.

We’re going to file the idea of the Kansas City Chiefs potentially releasing tight end Travis Kelce under that last category: “Ridiculous.”

A list of potential roster cuts at the NFL’s official site takes a stroll through both conferences and a player who could be on the chopping block for each franchise. To be candid, there are a lot of surprise entries—perhaps that’s intentional on the part of author Matt Okada—but the idea of releasing Kelce was rather shocking.

Yes, there are major decisions on the part of both player and team when it comes to Kelce’s future. The tight end himself has admitted that he has to make sure he is properly motivated to return for another season, and he’s also spoken openly about the fact that he can’t make defenders miss as often as he used to. Now that he’s in his mid-thirties, the game has clearly changed for him.

Travis Kelce has earned the right to leave or stay on his terms with the Chiefs.

That said, Kelce is still a highly trusted target for Patrick Mahomes, and his 97 catches last season led the Chiefs. He destroyed the Houston Texans in the Divisional Round and proved he’s still capable of ranking among the more productive tight ends in the league, even if he’s no longer pushing the envelope for what is possible at the position.

Kelce comes with a salary cap hit of nearly $20 million this offseason, so it makes sense why Okada would be drawn to that as an amount to adjust for the Chiefs. However, there are other ways around this issue.

First, Kelce may take care of the financial concerns by retiring from the Chiefs. However, the Chiefs have made it clear that they want Kelce to return in 2025. If that amount is somehow cost-prohibitive, it makes much more sense that both sides would work out some sort of restructured deal that would allow him to stay in K.C. (for as long as he wants) while perhaps easing the financial burden.

While no one should feel bad for Kelce’s wallet, it should be noted that the future Hall of Famer has always come at a steep discount for the Chiefs. The market disparity between wideouts and tight ends has allowed the Chiefs to employ an elite pass-catcher at a steep discount compared to teams whose top target plays wide receiver. Going cheap on Kelce at this point would almost feel like a slap in the face.

Okada makes a good point that the Chiefs have made shocking moves before when they traded Tony Gonzalez, but that was a different regime and scenario. Gonzalez wanted to leave K.C. to make a stronger postseason push. It was an unhappy player on a losing team. This is not that.

Kelce has earned the right to call all of the shots at this point in his career. If he’s going to no longer play for the Chiefs, it will be because he walked away from the game on his own terms. It’s very hard to imagine Kansas City would ever cut ties with Kelce even if the cap savings could be considerable.