Jason Kelce gained plenty of fans from his accomplished 13-year NFL career with the Philadelphia Eagles, but the retired offensive lineman did not expect to wake up on Wednesday and be more popular on social media than his brother, Travis Kelce.

Travis, the younger Kelce brother, has the advantages of being an active player, catching a record number of touchdowns for the Kansas City Chiefs throughout his career and winning three Super Bowls to Jason’s one.

There is also the small factor of the Chiefs’ tight end dating one of the most well-known people on planet Earth, global music star Taylor Swift.

As fans swooned over photos of Kelce and Swift from a recent wedding they attended together, an old photo of Jason and a random fan overtook the celebrity couple on the social media platform X.

Jason’s unexpected popularity online came as news to the 37-year-old, who hosts a podcast called “New Heights” with his brother, in addition to NFL analyst work on ESPN.

“@grok please explain to me why this photo is so popular,” he posted on Wednesday, tagging X’s artificial intelligence assistant to try to get an explanation for the surprising outcome.

The old photo of Jason, appearing to show him matching a fan in a Christmas sweater, was posted Monday by a user with less than 9,000 followers. Still, it accumulated more than 70,000 likes.

The original photo of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, posted by a Pop Crave account with 2.1 million followers, only had 63,000 likes.

Considering the people in the photos, it was quite a surprise as well. The former Eagles player has around 712,000 followers on X, while his brother (1.4 million) and the “Eras Tour” showstopper (93.7 million) have more than 95 million combined on that platform alone.

If the social media interaction showed anything, it is that Jason Kelce’s stardom is still on the rise even after hanging up his cleats at the end of the 2023 NFL season. Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s romance will always be a big story, but Jason is right up next to them.