With the NFL season over, new fans who tuned in to see Taylor Swift supporting her boyfriend Travis Kelce might be asking one question: now what?
“The great thing is that there’s always something going on in the NFL,” Joe Burrow, quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals, told Us Weekly exclusively alongside NFL legend Joe Montana before Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, February 11.
While discussing their partnership with Guinness Gives Back’s day of service on St. Patrick’s Day, Montana, 67, and Burrow, 27, had advice for all the fans who were introduced to football this season, be it because of Swift or otherwise.
“You have a little break right after the Super Bowl and then free agency starts,” said Burrow. “Then, have the lead-up to the combines and you go right into OTAs [organized team activities]. So there’s always something happening in the NFL if you want to pay attention to it. Rosters are going to change a lot over the next month. So that’s always exciting to see. Always something going on.”
Montana teased that the learning process could extend beyond the sports world. “For those new fans, if they don’t already, they should probably learn the lyrics to [Swift’s] songs and get ready,” he told Us, noting that he saw footage of Swifties at The Eras Tour in Tokyo “wearing Kansas City [Chiefs] stuff” in the days leading up to the Super Bowl. “There wasn’t one 49ers thing that I saw.”
Montana added, “She is bringing some attention to the Chiefs. I’m sure those fans probably already know the lyrics, but if not, they better.”
The NFL experienced a 7 percent increase in viewership throughout the regular season, and there has been a reported increase in female viewership overall (53 percent among teenage girls and 24 percent with female viewers aged 18-24). Swift, 34, has been widely credited for the bump since going public with Kelce, also 34, in September 2023.
While rookie NFL fans can look forward to the offseason and researching potential fantasy football team moves, Burrow and Montana will be busy readying themselves for St. Patrick’s Day with the Guinness Gives Back initiative.
Montana, who has worked with the Guinness Gives Back campaign for four years, will team up with the Maryland Food Bank for the first service event of the season, which will take place at the Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Baltimore, Maryland, on Sunday, February 18.
Taking place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., fans visiting the brewery are encouraged to bring nonperishable items for donation, and they will enjoy a Q&A with Montana followed by live music and activities.
On Sunday, March 3, Burrow and his Joe Burrow Foundation will help those experiencing food insecurity in Cincinnati. Fans interested in helping out can follow him and Guinness online for more details.
“Guinness has been a great partner,” Montana told Us. “They are big in giving back to the communities that they work in. Maybe this will get people to start thinking about how St. Patrick’s Day is not only about having fun but also about giving back to the community at the same time.”
Burrow said working with the Guinness Gives Back campaign has been “a perfect partnership,” adding, “And then, to be able to do this stuff with Joe [Montana], and be around a guy who has been there, done that, been great in the league, and a great person to be around? It’s exciting.”
Burrow credited his giving spirit to growing up around a lot of “great people” in Athens, Ohio. “It was a unique childhood,” the 2019 Heisman Trophy winner told Us. “[Athens] is a unique place with many different kinds of people, so I was exposed to many different cultures very early on.”
His parents also played an important role. “[They] instilled those values [of generosity] in me,” Burrow added. “And I had great friends who — we obviously had fun, but at the same time, they were all about [doing] the right things. And so I think it’s a combination of a lot of different things.”
Montana said he developed his philanthropic side later in his career thanks to a good friend who was one of the earliest angel investors in Silicon Valley. “What he does with his startups is that he preaches 1 percent — when he invests in startups, he wants them to commit 1 percent back to the community. And when I first met him, he started making me think more about looking around the areas you live in to figure out how to help.”
Montana acknowledged that “sometimes, you may not make as big of a dent as you’d like,” but even a small impact is important. “I don’t think it takes much for you to look around and notice that people need help,” he said. “And it’s great that Joe [Burrow] learned that at an early age. To be able to do this for a long time coming up? My hat’s off to Joe.”
