In a brief 21-second clip, Travis Kelce, the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs and famously known as Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, showcased an impressive display of resourcefulness

What do you do when you’ve made a mistake and let your team members down? Many of us might give in to disgust or self-recrimination, but in a playoff game this year, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce showed how quick thinking and adaptability can make up for even a bad screwup. If you’re founder or other business leader, you should keep it’s a great lesson to remember for the inevitable moment when you have a screwup of your own.

Kelce, who’s perhaps best known for his romantic relationship with Taylor Swift, co-hosts a podcast with his elder brother, former Philadelphia Eagle Jason Kelce. The show often includes a segment called Teach Tape, in which they go over the video of a play in detail, sharing their extensive knowledge about what’s going on on the gridiron. In last week’s episode, the brothers took a close look at one of Travis’s catches from the Chiefs’ playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens in January. The unlikely catch has been called “UNREAL” on YouTube–and it helped Kelce set a new record for most off-season catches. It’s worth watching the 21-second play to see Kelce leap sideways away from a defender and catch the ball a moment before falling to the ground.

It was a much-admired catch, and a fan of the show sent a video clip to the brothers to ask them to analyze it. Kelce’s comment? “This is me being an absolute idiot and just being in the right place at the right time.”

He went on to explain that the original play had a “kill” option in it. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes had called two plays in the huddle–a first play, and then a second play that he might switch to if conditions looked right, using a secret signal to tell the other team members about the changed plan.

Mahomes did indeed decide to change the play, and he gave the signal, but Kelce missed it. “I was thinking it was a different play,” he said.

Springing loose at the last second.
Mahomes dropped back, and with the defenders blocked, he had ample opportunity to throw the ball–except that Kelce was in a completely different part of the field from where he was supposed to be. But then he locked eyes with Mahomes and realized he’d made a mistake. “You’re like, ‘Oh shit! He needs me,'” Kelce recalled. “So I started running around and right at the last second, before Pat got his knees chopped out from under him, I kind of spring loose, or at least get between my man and Pat so I can kind of box him out for the catch.”

It helped, the brothers noted, that the Raven covering Kelce had his back to Mahomes for a moment, giving the quarterback a brief opportunity to throw the ball when the man blocking Kelce wasn’t watching. “Defender’s back to [Mahomes] and my eyes on him–I think that’s an advantage, especially with a guy with an arm like Pat or any of the really good quarterbacks they can just place it,” Kelce said.