If anyone knows a thing or two about going to the Super Bowl, it's veteran football players Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman.
After all, the former offensive players for the Patriots went to four championship matchups over the course of their nine-season tenure together with New England. And three of those times? The duo went home with Super Bowl rings.
"You couldn't ask for a cooler place to get to play professional sports than in Boston and New England and how the people showed such crazy support through the whole lot of years that we were there," Edelman says of his receiver days playing at Gillette Stadium.
In advance of Super Bowl 58, when the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs will face off in a Las Vegas showdown on Feb. 11, Gronkowski and Edelman talked with TODAY.com via video chat as part of their new campaign for Bounty paper towels.
The former teammates, who remain good friends, recalled their favorite wins, picks for this year's Super Bowl, as well as their thoughts on football's royal couple, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.
According to the retired players, the high-profile relationship between the pop superstar and Kansas City Chiefs tight end has been a good thing for football, attracting a legion of new fans to the sport.
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"It's the best game in America, there's no doubt about that," Gronkowski, now an NFL analyst for Fox Sports, tells TODAY.com.
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"Taylor's so great for the game. It's unbelievable what she has done to bring the new viewerships in. And then I believe the new viewerships are staying because of the product of the game of football. It is superb."
Edelman, also an analyst for Fox, wholeheartedly agrees.
"I think it's awesome," says the former Patriots receiver. "Anytime you can grow the game of football, that's a positive. It is such a fun, strategic chess-type game that we play. Hopefully (the new fans) see the product, they see how intense it is, the physicality of it, but also the beautifulness of an execution of a play."
Asked whether it's pressure-inducing to have significant others at games, Gronkowski — who has been dating model Camille Kostek since 2013 — says having in-person support from the stands is a benefit.
"That's your significant other — you want to play your best ball with the people that are close to you being at the game," Gronkowski explains to TODAY.com. He adds that having loved ones present always inspired him to win.
"You want to win that game so you can go back to the house and pop the bottle with your significant other, pop the bottle with your parents and your family, your brothers and close friends," he says.
As for Edelman, he says, "You always want to ball out for your babe." He laughs, then adds, "That's how it goes. You got her in the crowd — hey, you've got to ball out, make her proud."
Edelman and Gronkowski also reminisced on each of their favorite Super Bowls, with the former tight end saying his favorite matchup was the first one he won alongside Edelman, when the Patriots and Seattle Seahawks faced off in 2015.
"I had a touchdown that game, Julian had the game-winning touchdown. That game everyone contributed. It was a team win overall," says Gronkowski.
"We were all in our prime, we were all feeling good," Edelman adds. Though he says the Patriots had a "bad taste" in their mouths after losing the Super Bowl to the New York Giants in 2011, the victory against Seattle was especially sweet.
"We got it done and it was a fun one," Edelman tells TODAY.com.
With all eyes turned to the Chiefs and 49ers this Super Bowl, Gronkowski predicts that the 49ers will take the championship.
"They're just a powerhouse. They also haven't played their best football yet in the playoffs and they still made it to the Super Bowl," he says. "If they can play a complete 60-minute game of football, their superstar, step-up-to-the-table, I think they should be able to beat the Kansas City Chiefs."
As for Edelman, he's not quite ready to call the game just yet, saying it's still too early to pick.
"I want to see the injury updates, who's playing in the game. There's always some crazy storyline. Maybe a player goes off the rails at the Super Bowl or there's some kind of internal beef that happens in the week when you're in Vegas," Edelman explains. "But it's going to be a really good game."
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