Kylie Kelce, a former field hockey player and wife of former Philadelphia Eagles star Jason Kelce, recently talked about one of the most important topics in the NFL: labeling women as only WAGs and not as individuals. Seeing her stand up for women, one of the Arizona Cardinals’ offensive tackles’ partners reacted to her strong message.
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“I have met some phenomenal women through the NFL,” Taylor Brice, a legal consultant and partner of the Cardinals player Demontrey Jacobs, commented in an Instagram post by Women of the NFL. “He is more than just a player. We are more than just wives/girlfriends. The dynamic of how we support each other’s goals matters most to me.”
The comment was made after Kylie bashed the ongoing culture of mentioning NFL stars’ partners as their only identity. The word WAG has been popularized by multiple media outlets ever since 2002, when the term was first coined by The Telegraph. But somewhere in the process, the individual identity of the woman herself got lost in this tag.
“I always felt like the term WAG itself reduced the women to being defined by the role that their husband held,” Kylie told Michelle Obama on the IMO podcast. “I was fortunate on the Eagles; we had (women who were) lawyers, nurses, educators. We had these women who seriously accomplished in their own right. And I’m like, ‘Don’t reduce yourself to get in line with him. You have your own stuff going on.’ I was always really excited about the women with the Eagles, and never wanted them to be diminished,” Kylie told renowned attorney Michelle Obama on the IMO podcast.
Kylie has always been the one to keep her views up front with the world, and she didn’t hesitate this time around either. With the growing culture of women usually being reduced to just a term, Kylie has evolved the way fans see their beloved players’ partners.
After her career in field hockey, Kylie took advantage of her communications degree that she earned from Cabrini University and launched her own Not Gonna Lie podcast in December 2024.
But she wasn’t going to put things on hold there, as she was already working as the main ambassador and an advocate for the Eagles Autism Foundation since fall 2019. She also helps with the fundraisers that the foundation needs in order to cater to people with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
She also partnered with the brand Dove for their Body Confidence Sport Collective and joined Dove’s #KeepHerConfident campaign.
“As an athlete, field-hockey coach, and mother to three young girls, I know firsthand how important it is to build the body confidence of girls in sports. Young female athletes should be able to freely express themselves through the sports they love without the pressure of worrying about what they may look like while they play,” Kylie said in February 2024.
While Kylie was explaining how the acronym term WAG just holds the stereotypical value, she remembered one of her dear friends, Brittany Mahomes, a businesswoman and wife of the Chiefs franchise quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
“Brittany Mahomes is a great example. What she’s done for women’s sports and women’s soccer in the Kansas City area is so impressive,” Kylie said, according to People.
But Brice wasn’t the only one who aligned with what Kylie thought. Sarah Jane Ramos, a real estate agent and the estranged fiancée of the Dallas Cowboys star Dak Prescott, hit the repost button on the Instagram post by Women of the NFL.
The topic of WAGs being more than just a term on the internet has been a popular argument for a while. In May, during the People’s exclusive series, WAG World, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model and the longtime girlfriend of New England Patriots legend Rob Gronkowski, Camille Kostek, also weighed in on the topic.
“In the beginning, the negative connection to ‘WAG’ was as if I didn’t work for what I had,” Kostek said in WAG World’s first episode. “I happened to fall in love with an athlete, but I still have a career of my own. That’s why I wanted to come on this show, because I loved the description: You date an athlete, but you have this career of your own — so what’s that life like?”
The topic is an ongoing concern that spreads more awareness among the football fans around the world each year, with fans wanting to know more about their favorite players’ partners than just their names.