{"id":159047,"date":"2025-06-26T03:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T03:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/159047\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T03:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T03:58:15","slug":"tight-end-university-history-purpose-of-program-and-this-years-surprise-taylor-swift-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/159047\/","title":{"rendered":"Tight End University: History, purpose of program and this year’s surprise Taylor Swift performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let the games begin. It may be the NFL<\/a> offseason but it’s not time to rest for everybody. Many of the league’s tight ends gathered in Nashville this week for an event that began, in part, as a way to give more attention to the value of the position<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Tight End University” (TEU) is an event that began in 2021 aimed to bring the TE community together in a three-day program and has skyrocketed in popularity since it’s start. The event was founded by George Kittle<\/a>, Travis Kelce<\/a> and Greg Olsen<\/a> and includes football and non-football event.<\/p>\n

TEU is a way for the league’s tight ends to get together “to bond, collaborate with, and learn amongst their peers while participating in a variety of activities including film study, on-field drills, recovery, rehabilitation, and more,” their website states<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The program brings in retired tight ends, too.<\/p>\n

This marks the fifth year of the event, held in Nashville and has more than 70 tight ends are participating. The 2025 roster includes Las Vegas Raiders<\/a>‘ Brock Bowers<\/a>, Arizona Cardinals<\/a>‘ Trey McBride<\/a> and Tennessee Titans<\/a>, Gunnar Helm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At opening night, Kelce noted that this event is unique because players get to see other players outside of the face mask and encouraged everyone to “shake hands” and meet new people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You meet new friends, you get to talk to them before and after the games, which is so special. Then, being able to pick people’s brains, put a couple more tools in your tool bag, and be able to work out here and see it,” Philadelphia Eagles<\/a>\u00a0tight\u00a0Dallas Goedert<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

TEU gives back, raising money for multiple charitable organizations.<\/p>\n

If you haven’t guessed yet, this year’s special guest is 14-time Grammy winner and Kelce girlfriend Taylor Swift.<\/p>\n

Swift performed “Shake It Off,” in front of a crowd a lot smaller than her stadium tour usually provides, singing “and the players gonna play, play, play” in front of some of the league’s top players.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Swift reportedly<\/a> wrote the chords down for the band in place minutes before, used<\/a> country singer Chase Rice’s guitar and had no ear piece or prior preparation for the performance. This is her first public performance since buying back her masters<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just has he has been many times at her concerts, No. 87 was in the crowd dancing and singing along.<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at Swift arriving with Kelce:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let the games begin. It may be the NFL offseason but it’s not time to rest for everybody.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,6066,12469,110,4230,6,4205,3865,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-159047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-george-kittle","10":"tag-greg-olsen","11":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","12":"tag-nashville","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-taylor-swift","15":"tag-tight-end","16":"tag-travis-kelce"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114747664221416921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}