Taylor Swift’s Super Bowl LIX experience probably won’t resonate with the wives and girlfriends of those playing in New Orleans.

Whereas Travis Kelce’s pop-star sweetheart is expected to arrive Sunday aboard her private jet, Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles spouses have spent a chaotic week navigating the biggest stage in sports. Ticket requests, promotional events, the demands of family and friends, not to mention the needs of their husband or boyfriend are just some of the entailing duties.

The women reductively referred to as ‘WAGs’ aren’t playing on Super Bowl Sunday, but that doesn’t make the week leading up to the game any easier for them.

To Super Bowl winner and three-time NFC champion Ndamukong Suh, the stress is equal for players and their significant others, as he recalls from his three trips to the big game.

‘I think it depends on the family dynamics and those different pieces, because people with big families, 90 percent of that stuff the guys leave to their spouses to deal with,’ the Sky Sports NFL analyst told DailyMail.com. ‘So their wives and significant others are running with their heads cut off with dealing with 50 tickets, 60 tickets, 30 tickets, whatever it is. ”I gotta get you pᴀsses. I gotta do this. I gotta do that.”’

His wife Katya remembers far more stressors, like being pregnant with twins during the COVID-era Super Bowl of 2021 and having toddlers Kingston and Khari to worry about at Super Bowl LVII a few years later. And then there’s the social pressure to be as glamorous as the other supportive spouses — a very real consideration, according to Katya.

Ndamukong Suh and his wife Katya are seen during his time with the Los Angeles Rams 

The Suhs are seen with the Lombardi Trophy as she was pregnant with the couple’s twins 

Taylor Swift ‘s Super Bowl LIX experience will be atypical for NFL wives and girlfriends 

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‘You want to make sure that you’re presenting your spouse in the right light,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘I feel quite confident in myself. So I feel pretty good with it, but I think there are stressors, like, ”What’s the outfit?” You want to make sure that you’re not wearing the same thing as other wives.’

And on the off chance the two Super Bowl teams have similar color schemes, the potential for outfit duplication instantly doubles.

‘Who did we play?’ she asked Ndamukong before remembering his Super Bowl LV victory over the Chiefs as a member of Buccaneers: ‘Kansas City, right?’

His Bucs and the rival Chiefs both had red as their primary color, leading to some nervous moments among the players’ love interests leading up to the game in February of 2021.

Then there’s footwear, which is an area of strength for Katya, a former college basketball star who met Ndamukong at the University of Nebraska.

‘I wasn’t competing in the boots and the heels area,’ Katya laughed. ‘But you’re not beating me and the heat that I have on my feet.’

Ndamukong then revealed the source of his family’s sneaker game.

‘Especially because we’re sponsored by Jordan,’ he added within earsH๏τ of his twins, both of whom were dressed in brand gear.

The pressure to look one’s best notwithstanding, Katya says players’ families tend to get along well, even when the athletes aren’t necessarily teammates. Ndamukong played with the likes of Philadelphia’s Darius Slay, Tampa Bay’s Vita Vea and soon-to-be free agent Jameis Winston, and Katya says she’s always excited to see their respective wives Jennifer, Alexus and Breion regardless of rooting interests.

‘I mean, you want to be grumpy today, I sure don’t have energy for it,’ Katya said of the possibility of awkward interactions with rival wives. ‘Honestly, everyone’s been really great.’

Katya was pregnant with twins when Ndamukong’s Bucs won Super Bowl LV in Tampa 

Ndamukong Suh is seen during another exhausting media session before Super Bowl LIII

Ndamukong and Katya Suh ar seen with family after the Rams won the NFC six years ago

The bigger pitfall, she explained, was managing family’s expectations around Ndamukong.

Unlike his younger, unmarried teammates, Ndamukong was permitted to stay away from the team H๏τel as a member of the Los Angeles Rams at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta and with the Philadelphia Eagles in Arizona two years ago. In each of those cases, Katya was able to rent a secluded, quiet home for the family away from the Super Bowl excitement.

As for 2021, when his Bucs beat the Chiefs at Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Suh was actually allowed to stay at his own house.

‘I don’t understand with the NFL, especially at home games, why do we stay places where we’re not going to be comfortable and in our zone?’ Ndamukong asked, referring to teams’ tendency to house players at H๏τels before both home and away games. ‘I get it on the road…

‘But I was very fortunate, because I was a veteran and I was close with my my head coaches and security, so they never had to worry about me,’ he added. ‘So I was fortunate enough and got to stay at the house.’

Suh (center) spent most of his time with teammates before his three Super Bowl appearances, but was nonetheless allowed to stay with his wife and family rather than being at the H๏τel

SUPER BOWL ODDS 

Kansas City Chiefs: -120

Philadelphia Eagles: +100 

Anytime touchdown scorer: Saquon Barkley -195, Jalen Hurts -120, Travis Kelce +145, Xavier Worthy +165 

Odds are provided by FanDuel and are correct at the time of publishing 

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Being in one’s comfort zone is good for players, but also comes with some drawbacks.

‘It’s a double-edged sword,’ Ndamukong said. ‘At a hotel, I can control everything. Nobody’s gonna come in my room, but [at home] these little ones can show up and family can pop in and whatnot.’

Katya instinctively understood how to protect Ndamukong’s routines ahead of the Super Bowl while managing the expectations of friends and family who simply wanted to spend time with him.

‘She finds a rental or situation where it is super secluded with the master bedroom off in one wing, so everybody else can still enjoy themselves.

‘Then I can just go off to the wing and not have to worry about anything and go to sleep when I want to go to sleep, because I am very anal about my schedule,’ said Ndamukong, who admitted to being stressed out ahead of Super Bowls — particularly his first in February of 2019.

The owner of a cocktail bar, Kaya, near the family’s Portland home, Katya’s organizational and managerial skills are perfect for the situation.

‘I know he likes to have family, food, he likes that routine to be able to take a nap,’ she said. ‘And I just communicated with the people we’re coming with: ”This is when our house is available for everyone to come over…but we want to let him rest. These are the times where he’ll be here, and let’s all hang out and have a nice dinner do that sort of thing.”’

Perhaps the most taxing thing on players is all the media obligations, beginning with the Super Bowl’s Opening Night.

‘Media day,’ Katya remembered, ‘that was wild watching that in Atlanta for the first time… I watched it on TV… They’re exhausted at the end of it.’

‘We’re all tired,’ Ndamukong agreed.

Ndamukong Suh pursues Patrick Mahomes during Super Bowl LV in Tampa in 2021 

On the morning of the big game, Katya and Ndamukong liked to have a big family breakfast with visiting relatives, but that nearly turned into a catastrophe one year.

The person hired by Katya to cook the meal apparently had a late night on the Saturday before the Super Bowl, and with less than an hour to go before Ndamukong’s departure, that chef had yet to arrive.

‘I had to call a few times,’ Katya remembers of the nervous moments before the chef’s belated arrival. ‘They were very apologetic and all of that.’

The game and its aftermath aren’t any less nerve-wracking.

In Atlanta in 2019, as Ndamukong’s Rams were falling to the New England Patriots, he was tantalizingly close to Katya, who was seated in a low-level suite.

‘It felt like you could just touch him,’ she said.

But the euphoria of the moment was tarnished by the game’s result. 

‘It was devastating,’ Ndamukong said of losing in 2019. ‘I didn’t sleep at all that night. People were like: ”How do we console him?”’

Two years later was a different experience entirely. With the Buccaneers’ 31-9 victory over the Chiefs, and Katya eight-months pregnant, Ndamukong burst into a mad dash to find his wife before the final gun.

‘I raced to her because she was moving a little slow,’ he said. ‘I ran into the elevator and went and got her by the time the game was over, and then we walked out to the field and had the confetti. So that was awesome.’

Katya and Ndamukong Suh are seen celebrating the Bucs’ Super Bowl LV victory in 2021 

When he lost to the Chiefs as a member of the Eagles in Arizona two years ago, the presence of sons Kingston and Khari softened the blow considerably.

‘We have footage of our children at a Super Bowl watching daddy play,’ Katya said of 2023. ‘That is really cool.’

Of course, Ndamukong’s Eagles were dropping a heartbreaker, 38-35, so the joyful image of their children does come with the painful memory of a crushing defeat.

‘It wasn’t as traumatic as the first [Super Bowl loss],’ Ndamukong reluctantly agreed.

Reflecting back now on his three Super Bowl experiences, Ndamukong is obviously still troubled by his two defeats. 

But as painful as those memories are, they also serve as a reminder of Katya’s unwavering support in helping him navigate the week so he could pour his focus into the game itself. 

‘I think the great thing about having the wife that I have — and it’s always awkward to talk about your significant other when they’re sitting by you — but she’s super, super special and rolls with the punches,’ he said.