NFL Fans and Swifties Unite! 6 Taylor Swift Songs Reimagined as Football References

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged — which, let’s be honest, you already knew that. Kelce proposed in mid-August, according to Ed Kelce, Travis’ father. The engagement ring is quite something, picked out by a guy who knows quite a lot about (Super Bowl) rings. The couple made it official via an Instagram post on August 26, 2025, with the caption “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.” It comes on the heels of the release of Taylor’s The Life of a Showgirl album on October 3, 2025, and what could be the final season of Travis’ NFL career before retirement.

Both Taylor and Travis are entertainers in their own right — Taylor with a microphone and on stage, Travis by catching footballs and lifting trophies. So with Swift and Kelce set to recite their vows, how can we tie the knot between their professions? Here are 6 Taylor Swift song titles that I’ve turned into football references to celebrate the coming-together of poetry and pass-catching.

“August”

“August” was ranked #5 on Rolling Stone’s The 50 Best Songs of 2020. The song is the second-most streamed track from Folklore on Spotify, just over 1.5 billion streams. It was written as one-third of a three-part story about a love triangle between characters named Betty, James and Augustine. “August” is from the perspective of Augustine.

What is August from Travis’ point of view? Well, it’s the month when summer wraps up, when we dream about trading our swim suits for flannels (and a cardigan). It’s the month when preseason football begins and the taste of the regular season is on the tip of the tongue after 7 months without hearing those helmets and shoulder pads colliding.

August is truly about young love. It’s about having the most unforgettable, romantic summer with someone (James), and someone (James) leaving them behind (I’m looking at you, James). And it’s about that giddy feeling you get when the brand new football season is on the horizon, when hopes and dreams are still alive, and the game we all love is about to begin.

“22”

Off of the Red album, “22” is about Taylor enjoying her early twenties. It’s a catchy, up-beat tune, and is often used for social media captions for those celebrating their birthday between the ages of 21 and 23. The track peak at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100.

But in football terms, “22” represents the number of players on the field. It’s also used in the phrase “All-22”, which is the camera angle that shows the entire field, or all 22 players. It doesn’t matter which phase of the game it is, there are always 22 players on the field — legally that is. When Taylor is watching Travis from the suite in the stadium, more often than not, she has an “all-22” view of the game.

“Fearless”

“Fearless” is the title track of Taylor’s second studio album. It’s also how you describe a player who runs across the middle of the field to catch a pass. There isn’t a sideline to help shield a defender — it’s just running, looking towards the quarterback and hoping not to get blindsided. It’s a dangerous area. One might say you can be “taken by the hand and dragged head first”.

But in the case of Taylor, she wrote the song about an ideal first date. In a 2009 interview with iTunes, Swift said, “It doesn’t matter where you go to dinner or if somebody brings you flowers at the door. It’s really all about who you’re with.” And it’s about that feeling you get when you’re with someone who makes you feel fearless about love, life, the present and the future.

“Fortnight”

Fortnight: noun; a period of two weeks, 14 days.

Alternatively, fortnight also refers to the emotional damage that Taylor, Post Malone and Jack Antonoff put us through for 3 minutes and 48 seconds every time the song comes on. The pain of not being able to get over someone, with memories constantly replaying in the mind — despite only spending a fortnight together. But that fortnight felt like forever. “Fortnight” holds the record for most streams in a single day for any song on Spotify, with over 25.2 million streams.

Do you know what else makes “mornings feel like Mondays stuck in an endless February”? A bye week. Yes, the one week every NFL team is allotted during the season when they don’t play a game. The wait between games is often 14 days, a fortnight. And believe me, the pain of the character in the song is right up there with the struggle of having to wait two weeks before your favorite team plays again.

“Red”

In 2012 Taylor Swift released her fourth studio album, Red. The title track peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and even as high as #2 on the US Hot Country Songs chart. The song “Red” is about the wild ride of a relationship described in colors. The burning passion of red, the sadness and sorrow of blue, and the feeling of loneliness engulfed in the color of dark grey.

I’m not going to take the easy way out and say red is the color of Travis’ jersey. That’s too straightforward. On the football field, the color red can be positive or negative — depending on which team you’re on. When you see red on the field, that means there is a challenge on the play. The head coach of the challenging team tosses a red hacky sack-shaped object, kept in the pants pocket, tucked in the waistband, or even sometimes in the sock, onto the field. Once the play is challenged, the referee will go over to the monitor, watch the replay of the play in question and determine whether or not it is correct.

So like in football, where red can mean a crucial moment is about to swing either way, “Red” reflects on the ever-changing moments of love, solitude and heartbreak.

“The 1”

The second single off of Folklore, and debuting at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, “The 1” is about former lovers catching up after some time apart, reminiscing about the good times and staying mostly positive. Those experiences, however, can lead to not believing in everlasting love, singing, “Greatest loves of all time are over now”. It’s a balancing act between realizing after-the-fact that they weren’t “the one”, recognizing that there were still some good times, and the natural feeling of hopelessness.

Luckily for Travis, he has secured “the 1” three times — that being the Super Bowl championship. Thinking about the one goal, chasing the one dream of raising the Lombardi Trophy brings so many different emotions. The very few who achieve it remember it for the rest of their lives. Those who came close, well, in time the pain subsides. And for New York Jets fans like myself — despair. Always. The greatest films of all time were never made, and I’m afraid that my championship-winning film will never begin production.