Originally appeared on E! Online
Taylor Swift dating Travis Kelce is no fumble for the Kansas City Chiefs, according to quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
The NFL star has shared his thoughts on the couple's budding romance with regard to how it affects the athletes' team, who the singer has watched play in person multiple times in recent months.
"People see the whole Taylor Swift and Travis and they make it a huge deal because it is a huge deal," Mahomes told ESPN in an interview released Nov. 17. "I think it becomes a bigger deal to the fanbases than it does to the guys that are actually in the building."
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
Mahomes first met Swift at a Chiefs afterparty after her first game Sept. 24. "I've been lucky enough to meet Taylor and see how good of a person she is," he told ESPN. "I think you understand why it's not become a distraction or anything like that, because everybody cares about being the best they can be every day."
Taylor Swift Cheers on Travis Kelce at Her 4th Kansas City Chiefs Game
Swift has attended four Chiefs games and sparked a media frenzy each time. In October, the singer brought several of her celebrity friends, including Blake Lively, husband Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman and Sophie Turner, to one of them. Swift has also gotten to know the people in Kelce's inner circle—she's sat with his mom, Donna Kelce, as well as Mahomes' wife Brittany Mahomes, who she has also invited out to dinner with her squad.
In his interview with ESPN, Mahomes spoke about his close friendship with Kelce. "I honestly feel like he's my brother," he said. "His family and my family have almost become one family because of the relationship that we have and how we've kind of became these brothers on the football field."
He continued, "But off the football field as well, he doesn't try to be this Travis Kelce, Saturday Night Live guy. He just wants to be the guy that comes to play football every single day, and I think that's what makes him so special and why guys really gravitate towards him."
Kelce had hosted SNL back in March and also made a cameo on an October episode. Swift also appeared briefly on the latter show, after which they celebrated with the cast at an after-party.
"We both love winning and we love competing," Mahomes said about Kelce, "and I think that's what makes us have that same wavelength on the football field, as we're going to compete to the very end."
