In a typical year, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce would struggle to get through AFC Championship Week. This, however, is not a regular year.

The Chiefs are opponents against the Baltimore Ravens, the conference’s top club during the regular season. Then there’s Kelce’s romance with artist Taylor Swift, which has catapulted the potential Hall of Famer to a level of stardom that non-quarterbacks seldom achieve.

When asked Friday how he and Swift deal with the constant media attention around their daily lives, Kelce used a familiar football strategy: tune out the noise. “The only thing we’ve talked about is as long as we’re happy, we can’t listen to anything that’s outside noise,” he added.

 

Kelce is vying for his third Super Bowl ring—potentially Kansas City’s fourth—following wins in 2019 and 2022. This one would be hard fought, since the Chiefs’ 11-6 record was their poorest since 2017.

“There’s certain kinds of challenges in life where you just gotta appreciate that you’re getting tested,” he remarked. “Not everybody gets those kinds of opportunities, especially when you get an opportunity to do it with a group of men and women that you can rally together with and really prove to yourselves what you’re made of.”