Taylor Swift may be a 14-time Grammy Award winner, but when it comes to NFL knowledge, there’s plenty to work on. Yes, even though she’s engaged to the Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce. Because when Kelce showed her a highlight tape involving Jerome “The Bus” Bettis, she thought, “Why does he look like an offensive lineman running with the football?”

“He is just the f*cking best dude ever. I ran into him, and I think he was actually down in Florida doing a foundation event, and I got to run into him at dinner,” Kelce had said on the New Heights Podcast. “I was like telling Tay [Taylor Swift] about him, and I was like, ‘That dude was a fing beast. He was f***ing running dudes over.’ And then I showed her a Jerome Bettis highlight tape, and she was like, ‘Why does he look like an offensive lineman running with the football?’ I’m just like, ‘Because he was The Bus!'”

Giving Swift some credit, her assessment wasn’t all that terrible either. Bettis used to level defenders with his style of play that mirrored blocking lineman at times.

And when “The Bus” heard what one of the most popular artists in the world had to say about him, he laughed it off entirely.

“Hey, no problem. I mean, it’s fun to be watched,” he told a reporter. “It’s been 20 years since I played, so the highlights are over 20 years old. So it’s an honor just to be remembered, if you will, from that standpoint.”

Bettis had nothing bad to say about Swift. He just wants her to continue watching football, something Swift has admittedly been connected to even before she began dating Kelce. She said in earlier interviews that her father, Scott, had a long-standing friendship with Chiefs head coach Andy Reid.

As for Bettis, the fun stops when the conversation turns to his former team.

Steelers Legend Jerome Cautious about Aaron Rodgers situation at the Steelers

Bettis spent 13 seasons in the NFL before entering the Hall of Fame in 2015 as one of the best running backs (yes, Taylor, she’s a running back) in the game’s history. For the Steelers, he played 192 games, logged over 13,000 rushing yards, and was a six-time Pro-Bowler. Even today, he deeply cares what’s happening over in Pittsburgh.

Following an AFC North title in 2025 and the unexpected departure of head coach Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh found itself in a familiar place. For the second consecutive offseason, Aaron Rodgers kept everyone waiting on whether he even wanted to play football anymore.

The 42-year-old spent months deliberating, leaving the Steelers with no answers at their most important position. Pittsburgh eventually slapped a transition tag on him just to protect itself, and it was not until late May that Rodgers finally agreed to a one-year deal to come back. They got their answer, but the process did little to settle anyone’s nerves in Pittsburgh

The ongoing confusion drew comments from many analysts and fans. Bettis shared his own perspective on the matter during an appearance on Yahoo Sports Daily.

“I’ve got to give them the best chance to win now. Aaron Rodgers said,” he said. “I am going to keep my eye on the future and have some young guys in the queue ready to go at the quarterback position and give them the opportunity; and, if the Aaron Rodgers experiment does not work, then, midseason, we’ve got to go in a different direction. If we’re not in playoff position by midseason, we have to pull the plug on this plan.”

The depth chart behind Rodgers is entirely unproven. Young quarterbacks Will Howard and Drew Allar are next in line, neither of whom has played a regular-season NFL game. For now, Rodgers remains the most reliable option to guide Pittsburgh back to the postseason in 2026. But Bettis has made it clear that patience only goes so far.