Swifties are saluting Jason Kelce with videos set to Taylor Swift songs amid retirement rumors

Taylor Swift’s relationship with NFL tight end Travis Kelce has led to the football-pop music crossover no one was expecting. Now, it’s apparent that Swifties have crowned Travis Kelce’s brother Jason Kelce as one of their own, too.

After photos of the Philadelphia Eagles center crying after his team’s loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Jan. 15 went viral, Swifties arrived to show their support.

The newly minted football fans have taken to the internet to show him some love in the way they do best: Videos set to Swift’s songs.

"If anybody makes an edit of Jason Kelce’s top moments in the NFL set to Taylor Swift’s 'Long Live,' I will sue them for emotional damage," X user @swiftbunnies wrote — and, of course, someone did set Jason Kelce's career highlights to the nostalgic tune.

Holly Fisher, a self-identified Swiftie, tells TODAY.com she was both both surprised and delighted by the pop culture mash-up. She also wrote on X, “Never in a million years did i think i’d one day wake up to swifties posting tiktok edits of jason kelce to honor his nfl retirement, set to a taylor swift song, but here we are,” adding a saluting emoji.

The videos are more poignant since Jason Kelce, 36, may have played his final game.

Reports emerged that Jason Kelce told his teammates, following the loss, that he was retiring. He addressed the rumors, in more detail, during the “New Heights” podcast he co-hosts with Travis Kelce, saying, “I don’t know what next year is going to look like with the team,” and that there was “too much emotion” following the loss to make a decision.

Last year, the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl, where they faced off against Travis Kelce’s team, the Chiefs, but lost. “In the future there will be something said, I guess,” he continued.

The day before the "New Heights" episode dropped, Bethany Pendleton, a 25-year-old Swift fan living in Windham, Maine, braced herself for confirmation of his retirement — though it never came.

She shared a video to TikTok set to Swift’s “Gold Rush” with the text, “Tomorrow’s episode of New Heights is going to be a rollercoaster of emotions. I’m not sure that I’m mentally prepared to hear Jason Kelce confirm his retirement.”

Speaking to TODAY.com, Pendleton says she would consider herself “one of the biggest Taylor Swift fans to ever exist,” but she only recently got into the football scene because of the singer.

“It started with me only watching the Chiefs games in which Taylor was in attendance, but now I find myself watching football even when she isn’t there,” Pendleton says.

She explained that she grew up watching games with her brother and dad every Sunday, and her newfound interest has “pleasantly surprised the football lovers” in her family.

Following Chiefs games led to the Kelce brothers’ podcast, where Pendleton was able to see more of the Eagles player’s “character.”

“It’s hard not to love him,” she says. “He’s goofy, humble, kind and is very family oriented, which I believe is why he will be so missed. Him being a Football legend aside, I think people can see what a down-to-earth person he is.”

Fisher, a 31-year-old living in Raleigh, North Carolina, tells TODAY.com the Kelce brothers’ welcoming attitudes helped Swift’s fanbase feel invested in their football storylines, in addition to their romantic relationships.

“They’re excited about Swifties being excited,” she says. “They’ve shown us nothing but love on their podcast, and carrying themselves so genuinely you can’t help but to become fans of them as individuals separate from Taylor.”

X user Annie also joked online about the Kelce family obsession from Swift fans, sharing a clip of Jason Kelce interacting with his parents after the recent game and writing, “heard picture to burn in 2006 and here i am in 2024 crying over the kelce family.”

Annie, who preferred to remain anonymous, tells TODAY.com there’s “definitely a pipeline from Swiftie to NFL fan” — and she’s speaking from experience.

“I’ve watched NFL games casually over the years, but I’ve never been this invested,” she says.

Annie continues, “Swifties are very interested in anything Taylor does, so we all tuned in for the games and for the New Heights podcast initially because of her, but we stayed for the Kelce brothers. So many of us have learned so much from them.”

The Swift fan says she waits for each podcast to drop on Wednesdays and tunes into every Chiefs and Eagles game, adding that the brothers have been “so welcoming to their new audience.”

“My friends and I watch every game now and constantly message each other about how it’s going. We are now able to understand and discuss things that would have been a complete foreign language to us before all of this,” she says.

Like Pendleton, Annie says her renewed love for football has brought her closer to her own family.

“My family is definitely glad that I follow now, and we’ve been able to bond over it,” Annie says.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com