Are you ready for some footballllllll?
Well, here's the good news about the Super Bowl: Even if your answer to that was a resounding "meh, I guess," there's plenty on offer at this Sunday night party. Between the snacks, the incredibly star-studded commercials we'll all be talking about Monday morning, The Weeknd's multimillion-dollar halftime performance and everyone's latest woman crush Amanda Gorman delivering another piece of incredible poetry, Feb. 7 is sure to delight even if you don't know your defensive backs from your tight ends.
Speaking of which...there's no shortage of eye candy on hand for Tampa Bay's matchup with last year's champs, the Kansas City Chiefs. In fact, the whole league is riddled with cute guys who do more than look good in spandex.
They effect social change, game plan a way to raise millions in the wake of huge disasters and spend almost as much time at children's hospitals as they do in the end zone.
Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, for one, has called his visits to Seattle Children's Hospital "the best day of the week for me," and after he made Ciara his teammate in 2016, she began tagging along.
"It just reminds you of why you do what you do," the Grammy winner shared with E! News. "It puts things in perspective and it's a beautiful thing. We both really enjoy that and I think there's no greater feeling than knowing that you're actually making a difference in someone's life."
And they're just one of the league's power couples worthy of a spot in our hall of fame. So let's celebrate Sunday's big game by checking out our favorite gridiron guys and their No. 1 teammates. And then, you know, eating a football field's worth of nachos, wings, pizza and dips 'cause you the real MVP.
No matter that Tampa Bay's quarterback started this championship season in a new uniform with a different coach, a few things haven't changed. The 14-time pro bowler still has his six Super Bowl rings (soon to be seven?) he won with New England and continues to out-kick his coverage personally thanks to his bride of nearly 12 years.
Sure, the 6-foot-4 dad of three is no slouch, but the Brazilian-bred beauty—the world's highest-paid model for 15 years straight—is practically synonymous with supermodel. As Brady wrote of Bundchen in a February 2020 anniversary tribute, "You have always been the one to hold us up and you love us the way no one else can."
You get a ring...and you get a ring! At least that was the sitch when last year's Super Bowl MVP went to pick up his new bling Sept. 1. Filling a suite at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium with hundreds of white roses and a marquee spelling out his proposal, he left bride-to-be Matthews gushing, "My heart is so full! I love this man so incredibly much and today was so so special! Couldn't imagine this day being any more perfect!"
The quarterback had worked out his game plan for quite some time, admitting he felt more stress about the day then he did leading the Chiefs to victory last February. Since the pair, expecting their first child this year, had pretty much decided on forever eight years after meeting when she was a cheerleader and he a standout safety at Texas' White House High School, "You don't think it's going to be nerve-racking when you've been with someone for so long," the Kansas City Royals' part owner told KCSP 610 Sports Radio, "but before you get on that knee, man, your heart's racing. I promise you that."
He's got three Super Bowl rings and some 87 NFL touchdowns, but the tight end's best catch might just be girlfriend Kostek. "Whatever he does, whatever he wants to pursue, anything that excites him, I'm like, 'Go for it. I got your back,'" the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model told E! News of her love of six years. "And he's the same way with anything. He's watched me on this journey for years as we've been together."
Their path has led them down to Tampa Bay, where Gronk came out of retirement to join former Patriots teammate Tom Brady, but the spring quarantine afforded them a break from their constant, on-the-go careers. "It would always be, like, waking up early, like, 4 a.m. to catch a 6 a.m. flight," said Kostek. "Now it's so nice to not set an alarm and sleep in and snuggle in the morning." The rest of their days was a picture-perfect mix of workouts, creating TikTok content and teaming up in the kitchen. "He's like my little sous chef and we bake," she shared. "We do meditating together. "We do a lot of breath work and yoga stretches and I've been teaching him a lot of stuff as much as he teaches me about workouts."
Bills Mafia had no choice but to stan as the third-year QB led them one win away from the Super Bowl this season. But his girlfriend's fandom goes back more than a decade and a half. "My 8 year old crush became my boyfriend a few years later," the Pilates By Britt founder posted on social media, marking their first anniversary in 2018.
By his side on draft night later that year ("Watching your dreams come true was a moment I will never forget," she said at the time), the former California State University, Fresno cheerleader has since brought her skills to Bills Stadium where she can often be spotted suite-side in team colors. "we've come a long way," she wrote on Instagram of their elementary school flirtation. "im just glad you don't have cooties anymore."
A dual threat quarterback, Houston's leader can thread a perfect pass or get a first down with his legs, but his best skill may just be sliding into his girlfriend's DMs. "He sent me a picture of me and my grandmother," influencer Anais shared during an April 2020 episode of her YouTube series QuaranTEA. "And he was like, 'This is a legendary picture, you should frame this.'" (To be fair, he wasn't wrong, Gammy's double-bird stance giving off "a lot of energy" as he put it.)
His missive wasn't completely out of the blue, he insisted, revealing that they'd connected four days earlier during a night at L.A.'s Catch in the summer of 2019. "We made eye contact," he shared. "And it was that eye contact where, I know you, but I've never met you before."
Days later he shot his shot at the self-described "Houston, Texas Southern belle" and soon, she continued, "we were having genuine conversation." Asking about her plans for the next day, he invited himself along to her and her best friend's 7:30 a.m. hot yoga class. And though she initially freaked out about looking "a hot mess," she now sees that first date as "natural and organic." Hours later, they met up for what turned out to be a five-and-a-half-hour dinner. Said Watson, "Ever since then, we've been rocking with each other."
Cleveland's QB hatched quite the game plan to woo now-wife Emily after they were introduced by a mutual friend in 2017. Uninterested in dating a "punk football player," as she put it to ESPN, she did her best to ignore him as he followed and unfollowed her on Instagram to get her attention. But when he made a pitch for her to join him for lunch when he was in Los Angeles that December, she relented.
With his Oklahoma Sooners set to play in the Rose Bowl the next day, in hopes of winning their way to the college championship game, she expected to listen to a lot of shop talk. "I was assuming he'd be the typical playboy athlete," she noted. Instead, he threw out question after question about her life and goals. Three days later, he moved into the L.A. home she shared with her brothers. They were engaged the following summer. "You are everything I've ever dreamed of and more!" she wrote on their first anniversary last July. "Cheers to a million more years of endless laughter, sleepy pillow talks, late night dancing, and questionable golf games. Thanks for being the best husband! I love you!"
Sharing is caring. Two days after the then-injured quarterback watched his Philadelphia Eagles win the Super Bowl in 2018, he proposed on a candle-covered rooftop, "And now Maddie and I both got us a ring," he said of the moment. Five months later, they were husband and wife, marrying at an outdoor ceremony in Pennsylvania's Bucks County. And less than two years after that, in April 2020, they welcomed daughter Hadley.
"What a journey it's been already!" the North Dakota native wrote in an anniversary tribute that year. "I couldn't ask for a better wife and Hadley is the luckiest little girl to have you as a mom! Can't thank you enough for all you do for our family and how you love and support me. You're the best and I love you forever and always!"
"Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favorite," Ashley wrote on their wedding anniversary last March. Theirs began in Seattle back in 2013, when the San Francisco cornerback was still flexing with the Seahawks. Engaged by 2015, she and the Stanford grad welcomed their son Rayden that February ("2/5/15… Is it a coincidence or is he just that clever?!" No. 25 tweeted at the time) and daughter Avery the following April.
Wed in Punta Cana in 2018, she now serves as executive director of Blanket Coverage, the Richard Sherman Family Foundation, devoted to helping students in low-income communities. But mostly, as he put it on social media, she's "The Captain of my team."
Touchdown dances are great and all, but we're more interested in Nicole's victory celebrations, TBH. After her tight end boyfriend of more than three years and the rest of the Chiefs emerged victorious in the 2020 Super Bowl, she, Kelce, Mahomes and Matthews went on a post-parade joy ride through Kansas City, singing along to Queens' anthem "We Are the Champions."
It's fair to say the Catching Kelce star paid his duesssss (time after time) while hunting for love. And now that he's snagged the on-air host and model, he ain't gonna lose. "She's the rock to my roll, the passion to my fruit, even the peanut butter to my JELLYTIME," he wrote last March of the founder of the Strong Is Sexy fitness brand, "she's my errrrthang! Love you lil baby."
Should the 42-year-old get back in the game this fall, it'd be his 16th season with the New Orleans Saints. But his contract with wife Brittany dates back even further, the two set to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary Feb. 8. More than two decades and four kids in, the pair's partnership is every bit as successful as the Super Bowl-winning 13-time pro bowler's career, but he admittedly fumbled his initial play.
"I made a real fool of myself when I first met her," he told ESPN the Magazine in 2002 of their initial encounter at Indiana's Purdue University. "It was when I was a sophomore. It was my 20th birthday and I'd had about 17 shots and put my foot in my mouth. It was a typical football player cheesy line—we'll leave it at that. It took me six months to get the courage to talk to her again." Obviously his second pass worked. "Here's to my forever Valentine," the grateful athlete wrote in an Instagram tribute last February, "and to this amazing journey we are on together!"
Forget Disney World. With his Carolina Panthers not in the post-season, the running back rushed off to Mexico to toss the ball around with his favorite teammate Culpo. More than a year in, the model and restauranteur is clearly fitting in well with his squad, as evidenced by the quippy back-and-forth she shared with the pro bowler's mom last year.
When Lisa McCaffrey cracked on a particularly steamy photo that they should "get a room," Culpo responded: "We're going on vacation next week but don't worry, I booked us separate rooms #virgins." Bold. No matter what's on the agenda, though, it's sure to be a good time. As the athlete captioned a recent photo of Culpo and their pup Oliver Sprinkles, "No bad days with these two."
When the Santa Clara University soccer star accepted a handful of sunflower seeds from a cute guy at a Stanford baseball game back in 2012, she had no clue he was an All-American on the Cardinal football squad. But their first date to Chipotle is still memorable. "To this day, still one of our favorites," he told Philadelphia Magazine. Two years later, she was selected third by the Chicago Red Stars in the NWSL draft, landing her some 750 miles from where the 2013 second-round NFL pick catches passes for the Eagles.
Though she was on hand to watch him win a Super Bowl in Minneapolis in 2018, they spend more time chatting through FaceTime than in person. "We always joke that I have a relationship with my phone," she told the mag. "But I think we knew that going in. I don't want to say it makes it easier at all…but we understand."
When the Houston Texan's standout defensive end wed the soccer forward in the Bahamas last February, he took a moment to remind everyone just how much he'd scored, popping his color to show the "Mr. Kealia Watt" embroidered underneath. It was a fitting callback to the time he took Houston's ABC affiliate to task for referring to the athlete simply as J.J. Watt's fiancée in a story about her trade to the Chicago Red Stars. "This headline is trash," he wrote in a tweet. "Kealia Ohai (which is her name by the way, since you didn't even bother to mention it) is incredible entirely on her own merit and deserves to be treated as such."
He makes sure to do so, the five-time pro bowler admitting to People, "We're very competitive. Very, very competitive and we like to workout together. She's much faster than me, [while] I'm slightly stronger." But the duo—introduced by Watt's former teammate Brian Cushing, who's wed to Ohai's sister Megan, a former USC soccer player—aren't all work and no play. Continued Watt, "We have a lot of fun together."
The Giants wide receiver made the ultimate catch attending former teammate Victor Cruz's birthday party back in November 2016. Spying the Gucci and Versace runway vet, "I walked up to her and bought her a drink and it was over after that," he told People.
Thirteen months later, the Victoria's Secret model was accepting his birthday proposal and by March 2018, they were wed and expecting their first daughter Cali. Daughter Cassie rounded out their team in December 2019 with Iman crowing, "Our Christmas gift came early."
When you come out of the gate with a mid-vacation proposal in the Seychelles followed by a wedding in an actual castle in Cheshire, England, well, it starts to feel like there's nowhere left to go but down. But when it comes to his four-plus year marriage to effervescent pop star Ciara, she of the magical hips, tireless work ethic and the catchy No. 1 singles, all the Seattle Seahawks quarterback does is win.
Having landed his dream girl—who gave birth to her third child, son Win in July 2020— "I'm truly grateful every day to get to come home," he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "and it puts a smile on my face every time."
Ahead of big game, catch Super Bowl champion Victor Cruz taking over E! News' Instagram Sunday, Feb. 7 starting at 3 p.m ET / 12 p.m. PT.