Now we’ll see if the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce romance is for real

The Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift attention train made its next stop Thursday night at Arrowhead Stadium. For the second time since the music-sports alliance became the hottest topic in sports, the biggest star in music watched her who-knows-what partner/friend/boyfriend/confidant tight end play in front of a home crowd in Kansas City. It coincided with the day before the national release of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie, as if Swifties couldn’t get enough of their self-anointed Lord and Savior. Kelce showed why he’s one of the best tight ends in NFL history against a terrible Broncos squad with a dominant performance. He caught all nine targets for 124 yards on a night not much else was effective for the Chiefs’ offense.

With all of that in mind, now we’ll truly find out if the Kelce-Swift synergy was all for show and did loads of publicity for the duo, or if they actually care about one another in a romantic way. I’m not Cupid, nor will I pretend to have industry sources close to the most protected musical act in the world. I’m also not going to give you claptrap as an NFL insider. What I do know is bad vibes can be spotted from a mile away. And the Kelce-Swift partnership hasn’t cleared those hurdles yet. It’s nice, and it would be pure Americana if it happened, I guess? I’d be happy for the lovely couple. I’m just not convinced this all hasn’t been a publicity stunt from two well-trained media figures from the jump, with buy-in from both inner circles.

The dates for alone time work out really well. Kelce doesn’t have to put on the pads at practice until next week. The next show of Swift’s tour isn’t until Nov. 9 in Argentina. TMZ did report the duo plans to spend the weekend together, and that can be taken with a painstaking grain of salt. The idea makes sense on its own though. Hope they’re leaving Missouri for a weekend alone though. A trip to Lake of the Ozarks isn’t exactly what I would imagine as fun for the duo. May I suggest Las Vegas? Plenty of photo ops and places to boink, or just to escape the press.

Another reason the Kelce-Swift train has come to a fork in the road is timing. The news coming to light as new and exciting is done. The fact that they’ve held our attention this long is impressive, but that’ll come to an end soon too, even with how popular both are in their football or non-football circles. Couples will dress up as the duo for Halloween, and no matter how this turns out, it’ll be a fun memory for those of us who lived it to look back on. The rubber’s just going to meet the road before we all know it.