“She’s top-tier at her profession. And to see how she drives and she becomes that — dude, it’s really cool to hear about and to see,” Patrick, 28, said during an interview with CBS Mornings on Friday, December 22, while discussing Swift’s romance with Kelce, 34, and friendship with his wife, Brittany Mahomes. “Now I have a firsthand look at that through Brittany and Travis’ eyes.”

Patrick noted that members of the Kansas City Chiefs initially kept their distance as Kelce and Swift, also 34, figured out their connection.

“Everybody stayed away [and] just let [Travis] do what he was doing,” he recalled. “Then he started bringing Taylor around. He realized how cool of a person she was — and she is — and so for us, there were a couple of jokes here and there at the beginning.”

The quarterback also bestowed a great honor on Swift, saying, “She’s just part of Chiefs Kingdom. And she’s part of the team.”

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce GettyImages-1738323608 NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 15: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have dinner at Waverly Inn on October 15, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Gotham/GC Images

Swift and Kelce quietly started dating after he revealed his crush on the singer after attending the Kansas City stop on her Eras Tour in July. Two months later, Swift started regularly attending Chiefs games. She’s since sparked a friendship with Brittany, 28.

“It’s cool that she’s embraced Brittany and they’ve built a friendship as well,” Patrick added on Friday. “So, for me, it’s Travis, and he’s lucky enough to be with a great girl and a great woman. It’s been cool to interact with her.”

After saying he is glad that Swift is “the person that she is,” Patrick teased, “That’s why I think her and Travis match so well.”

Kelce previously opened up about the interest in his personal life as well, saying on a September episode of his “New Heights” podcast, “I know I brought all this attention to me. I’m the one that … did the whole friendship bracelet thing and told everybody how butthurt I was that I didn’t get to meet Taylor. What’s real is that it is my personal life and I want to respect both of our lives.”

He added: “She’s not in the media as much as I am, doing this show every single week and having fun during the NFL season on other guys’ shows.”

Swift, meanwhile, recently made a rare comment about why she doesn’t mind the attention surrounding her and Kelce’s romance.

“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she said in her TIME 2023 Person of the Year interview earlier this month. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”

During Friday’s interview, Patrick showed support for Kelce‘s wish for privacy, telling CBS, “But like Trav said, man, I’m going to let them have their privacy and just keep it moving.”