Celebrating the NFL Badasses Worthy of Their Own Holiday

The best celebration in football began Sunday, highlighting an overlooked and evolving position, focusing on those who can catch and who can block, the hybrids and the versatile.

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.

Kittle is often credited as the holiday’s originator. Which makes sense, since he remains the position’s foremost lobbyist :: Cary Edmondson/USA TODAY Sports

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 and agile, dump trucks and 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.

We move

We pivot

We catch, pass and we hit it

Just cruise

No gimmicks

We’re the tight ends, let’s get it

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, it’s about time.

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Celek's TD against the Lions in Week 2 of the 2018 NFL season got Kittle screaming things such as “National Tight Ends Day!” and “It’s a holiday!” :: Sergio Estrada/USA TODAY Sports

The origin story of the best holiday in pro football starts like this: Week 2, 2018, 49ers-Lions. Jimmy Garoppolo dropped back and found Garrett Celek, a tight end who’s now retired, for an 11-yard touchdown pass. Celek, with typical TE aplomb, dragged a pair of meagerly muscled defenders into the end zone. That got Kittle going, and he stalked up and down the San Francisco sideline, screaming things such as, “National Tight Ends Day!” and “It’s a holiday!”

San Francisco triumphed in that game, 30–27. Celek’s score mattered, but less for the win and more for what it sparked. “Tight ends all over the league are scoring touchdowns,” he told the 49ers’ website in a story that’s not dated and carries no byline. “That’s how it came to be. We just kind of rolled with it."

Because Kittle wore a microphone that day, because his forceful celebration shot all over the internet and because he answers questions like this honestly, he’s often credited as the holiday’s originator. Which makes sense, since Kittle remains the position’s foremost lobbyist.

That’s part of the story. But only part.

National Tight Ends Day actually started with a quarterback, of all position types. It was Jimmy G who elevated an inside joke within the 49ers’ locker room, as first reported by ESPN in 2020 and confirmed by a Garoppolo confidant this week. The birth of a remarkable holiday started one Sunday, when each of the 49ers’ myriad tight ends were active. Garoppolo, with Kittle in earshot, quipped, “What is it? National tight end day?” Celek immediately caught on, yelling the same types of things that Kittle soon yelled on their sideline after Celek scored. “And we just kind of rolled with it,” Kittle told ESPN.

So did everybody else. The NFL acknowledged the holiday the next season, in 2019. Pro football has celebrated tight ends on the fourth Sunday in October every season since. This marked the rare year when October began on a Sunday, hence the earlier-than-usual date.

Not that Kittle needed any reminders. He showed up to his media availability last week wearing a “Ross ’Da Boss’ Dwelley T-shirt” to celebrate his tight end/teammate. He even offered tips for anyone interested in how to do the same: Watch good football, see tight ends score touchdowns, understand that they rank among the NFL’s best athletes. While that’s certainly quibble-able—if tight ends were as athletic as receivers, they wouldn’t be tight ends—no need to dim the celebration.

“It’s fun,” Kittle told ESPN in 2020. “Tight ends, we’re kind of like a brotherhood. It’s a position where I want to see everyone succeed all the time. I want to see tight ends score touchdowns. I want to see them pancaking guys, breaking tackles, pass pro; I like seeing it all.”

A quick history lesson: Tight ends didn’t catch much more than colds in the 1950s and ’60s, then evolved into blockers who could, occasionally, catch.

In every decade since, they’ve further evolved into offensive hybrids, starting with players such as Mike Ditka (427 receptions, 12 seasons) and Jackie Smith (480, 16). Now, there are even specialists—tight ends who primarily catch passes and tight ends who still primarily block, along with every hybrid combination in between. Thus, the inclusive nature of their holiday. Kittle and his brethren ensure each and every type of tight end will receive their share of this position-specific spotlight—one he will never stop attempting to broaden.

The NFL released a celebration video this month, in advance of the fourth-annual National Tight Ends Day, the holiday that predates all the celebratory feasts—Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas—with, ideally, an indulgent soiree of its own. Past tight ends must also be honored (Dallas Clark, Tony Gonzalez, Shannon Sharpe, Jason Witten, Antonio Gates, John Mackey, Ozzie Newsome, Jimmy Graham, Gronkowski and others). Kittle pays homage by wearing custom pregame cleats or T-shirts.

The video featured the 49ers’ tight ends, mostly. Kelce, amid worldwide recognition of his burgeoning romance with Taylor Swift, made necessary cameos, strutting into Arrowhead Stadium through the home team’s tunnel and breaking out a hip-swiveling touchdown bop. Then there’s McCaffrey, the Niners’ star running back, who asks why his position doesn’t have its own holiday, while his teammates who play tight ends shake their heads and push him out of the frame.

Tight ends are having themselves a moment.

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Kelce celebrated National Tight Ends Day catching 12 passes for 179 yards and a touchdown against the Chargers :: Denny Medley/USA TODAY Sports

So began another glorious, necessary, long-coming celebration! Perhaps the first game shown in Seattle on the fourth Sunday in October marked a fitting start to the best holiday in football. It featured Buffalo against New England, meaning it pit a franchise trying to use tight ends (veteran Dawson Knox and rookie Dalton Kincaid) via the blueprint established by its opponent. Before the Patriots slid toward the NFL’s basement, they popularized or brought back the concept of two pass-catching blockers in Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. One became a deity for those celebrating the tall, muscular men with speed who populate NFL rosters. The other is Aaron Hernandez.

Before any other matchups can be assessed, Pharaoh Brown, a TE for the Pats, snags a pass from Mac Jones and rips off a 25-yard gain. The celebration begins, right then.

Also worth holiday examinations: Baltimore’s Mark Andrews, because, always; Detroit’s Sam LaPorta, the Lions’ second-round pick from Iowa who’s catching everything; Cleveland’s streaky David Njoku; New York, as in the Giants, who tend to collect colorful characters (Mark Bavaro, Jeremy Shockey, Kevin Boss) at TE; and the Falcons’ Kyle Pitts, for all the debate he’s currently generating. That’s just the morning window for the best holiday in football.

If only it can be realized. Allen throws an interception, dimming the celebration due to his intended target—Knox.

Fortunately, hope is not lost, not entirely, not in the early window and not even a little bit by night’s end. In a season when tight ends had given football obsessives little to celebrate—registering only two 100-yards-or better receiving games in six weeks of action—tight ends went off on the holiday devoted to them and their do-it-all mentality.

Andrews paced the Ravens’ surprising blowout of the Lions, with a pair of touchdown grabs among his four receptions. LaPorta caught more passes (six) than Andrews but failed to score, highlighting the veteran’s trick, a work-smarter-not-harder afternoon. Pitts ended none of the debate surrounding his usage in Atlanta, his line a pedestrian three receptions for 47 yards. But one grab highlights what makes the arguments around him so fierce—a one-handed snag while galloping left. Pitts actually slows to grab the ball with his left hand and places it behind his back, as if he will cross over defenders. But as one heads that way, Pitts shifts the ball like a matador, sending the defender flying as he secures the most national-holiday-type-reception.

So it went. And went. Darren Waller compiled his best game in a Giants uniform, with seven catches, 98 yards and a score, his first since injuries forced him to another team and he landed in New York. Njoku managed a 5–54 line in the surging Browns’ latest victory (over the Colts). Mike Gesicki snagged a game winner for the Patriots—with one hand and the most appropriate of celebrations, a literal slide into a national spotlight. Kincaid sparked an improbable Bills comeback, the one Gesicki ended, his TD a little tight-end-on-tight-end crime.

Amplification took place in the later window. It started in the usual place, with Kelce, now Swift’s love interest more than NFL superstar, who grabbed nine receptions and gained 143 yards—in the first half of the Chiefs’ win over the Chargers, with Swift again in attendance. She watched him score after receiving a backside push into the end zone: proof, once more, that everybody wants to celebrate tight ends, and the celebration is like the position’s role itself—all team effort. In the postgame revelry, quarterback Patrick Mahomes grabbed Kelce’s shoulder while on national television and yelled, “Greatest of all time!”

What a thoughtful gift—and a fitting homage to a pair of franchises that nearly redefined the tight end positions by themselves. The Chargers featured Kellen Winslow, one of the first speedy, downfield TE threats. The Chiefs deployed Tony Gonzalez, the best ever, until Gronk and Kelce continued the position’s evolution.

And, in the highly anticipated nightcap, the team that lost its prized tight end target (Dolphins, Gesicki) also lost an early litmus test to Philadelphia. No surprise there. Not on this national holiday. The Eagles might start elite wideouts in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. But no one creates separation or matchups for both such as Dallas Goedert, who doubles as Jalen Hurts’s delightful third option for targets. In Sunday’s lopsided victory, Goedert paced Philadelphia with five catches, 77 yards and a touchdown, the Eagles’ first, which gave them a 10–3 lead.

Tight ends, for the win—and for the win. And for the win.

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Kittle will miss out playing on National Tight Ends Day with the 49ers facing the Vikings on Monday Night Football.  :: Scott Galvin/USA TODAY Sports

If National Tight Ends Day was already a thing, then after the latest iteration, it will continue to be that and more. Beyond the spotlight Kittle and others created, the internet seems to love this burgeoning holiday as much as any tight end who ever played. On social media, random fans started tabbing players for superlatives that tight ends handed out in the NFL video, naming combinations of president-vice president-social chair-house dad. (Sports Illustrated’s favorite combination featured President Kittle, VP Andrews, Social Chair Kelce and House Dad Gronk, now that he’s deeper into retirement. Although Marcedes Lewis, now in Chicago and in Season 18, works for positional papa bear, too.)

All of which is to say that perhaps Kittle was onto something all along. This year, with a Monday Night Football contest featuring his 49ers and the Vikings, he didn’t even play on National Tight Ends Day. Instead, he simply watched what he created, while helping spread its viral nature to the masses, celebrating all tight ends for their contributions, their evolution, their importance.

As it should be, Kittle might argue. Has, actually. Whenever someone asks about the holiday he helped force into the mainstream, he says that, because tight ends tend to possess distinct personalities, half divas like receivers, half cogs like O-linemen, they’re worth celebrating on more than a Sunday. They’re worth, he argues, celebrating every day, all year-round.

And, based on the latest iteration of National Tight Ends Day, who would dare argue with him?