The best holiday in pro football takes place in October every year. It features not the pretty-boy quarterbacks, the red-faced coaches, the suited broadcasters, nor even the best players at any one position. No, this holiday is bigger and broader than those; it’s more inclusive, more far-reaching, more … fun. It highlights an overlooked and evolving position, celebrating those who can catch and who can block, but who now do both in closer-to-equal measure; those who are part lineman and part receiver: hybrids, the versatile, with counterculture vibes.
Of course tight ends deserve their own holiday. That is not even a question. The only tragedy involved here is that they didn’t have one sooner.
Thus, the best holiday in football began Sunday, promptly, with the first kickoff in Week 7 across the NFL. No, hagglers of the thou-protest-too-much variety, the Thursday night matchup, where Jacksonville beat New Orleans, does not count. After all, it’s not National Tight Ends Week.
Nor is this holiday an embrace of your parents’ idea of tight ends. Long considered little more than extra blockers—for most of the position’s history tight ends were considered less important than quarterbacks and those they threw or handed off to and those who protected them. Tight ends, in contrast, represented the most extraneous offensive players. The attention and accolades paid to them was lower—and in lockstep.
Then, the revolution, the Gronks and the Kittles and the glamour types. These tight ends didn’t eschew blocking such as many of their receiver counterparts. They loved to do it all, and they celebrated doing it all, and the combination reinforced what should have been obvious all along. Tight ends had become NFL badasses, built agile, dump trucks ballet dancers. They deserved more attention—deserved, even, their very own holiday.
The ever-widening embrace has morphed into a tradition to behold. The best holiday in pro football is now on many calendars, such as this one, where it’s sandwiched between a date absent any goofy holiday and another, 10/23, with six separate reasons to celebrate (paralegals; moles; television talk-show hosts; Crocs; Boston cream pies; and, apologies, editors, National Slap Your Annoying Coworker Day). Franchises such as George Kittle’s 49ers have embraced the merriment, with stories posted on team websites and video clips shared across social media. LeBron James, the greatest TE who never was, shouted out the tight ends on social media. Tight ends are having their collective moment, whether getting paid (Rob Gronkowski, Kittle, Travis Kelce), dating global pop superstars (Kelce, who’s entangled with Taylor Swift) or getting drafted in the first round (Dalton Kincaid, Bills).
This year, the NFL even dove deeper on National Tight Ends Day. Kittle filmed a video with several teammates (Ross Dwelley, Charlie Woerner, Kyle Juszczyk and Christian McCaffrey). They hung out in a convertible—Kittle, naturally, took the driver’s seat—and belted out some car karaoke.
In the post, shared by the NFL, the celebration is described as “your favorite player’s holiday.”
Everyone, it seems, partakes. Like the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which sends out a press release reminding the public of its members who played tight end.
No longer anonymous, nor afterthoughts, tight ends are finally closing the gap between their collective personality and their combined national attention. They’ve morphed into versatile superstars of sorts. To which Kittle and others can say only, simply, .
