A Kansas City Chiefs coach revealed Taylor Swift began showing her support for Travis Kelce’s football career before making her first NFL game appearance in September 2023.

“When she started to come around, it was privately,” Dave Merritt, the Chiefs defensive backs coach, revealed during a recent episode of “The Sports Shop With Reese and K-Mac” podcast. “She was coming into the stadiums without people really knowing until the camera put a big spotlight on it.”

Taylor Swift Visited Travis Kelce at NFL Stadiums Before Going Public | Us Weekly

Merritt’s comments about the couple’s relationship timeline align with those Swift, 34, shared in her December 2023 TIME Person of the Year profile. At the time, she explained that she and Kelce, 34, began hanging out not long after he publicly discussed trying to give her a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it at her July 2023 Eras Tour concert in Kansas City.

“We actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other,” she told TIME. “By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple. I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.”

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On the “The Sports Shop with Reese and K-Mac” podcast, Merritt, 52, went on to defend Swift against critics complaining about her air time during NFL games this past season by calling her “a part of our [Chiefs] family.”

He continued: “She actually affected the team in a positive way. It wasn’t [in] a negative way. It was [like] everybody was excited that Travis was happy. So, when my player, my brother, is happy beside me, that helps me and that encourages me. And so, Travis came in there a different man, so she helped us.”

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Swift has also earned Chiefs head coach Andy Reid’s stamp of approval. “It hasn’t been a distraction, so there haven’t been any distractions,” Reid, 65, said in an interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio ahead of Super Bowl LVIII earlier this month. “She’s a good girl, and she loves the game and obviously loves Kelce, so I’m happy for them both.”