BALTIMORE — There is no end in sight. They’re not leaving. The dynasty that has reigned over the NFL for the past six seasons. The cultural moment that has saturated the league these past four months. Neither will go away quietly. The consistent excellence of one has spawned the all-consuming dominance of the other, and so together the amalgamated power that is the Kansas City Swifts are coming to take over your Super Bowl.

The Chiefs, the reigning champions who are now heading to a fourth Super Bowl appearance in five years, had appeared to lose their swagger during stretches of the long regular season. For critics waiting on their demise, it was too tempting to attach their tailspin to the beginning of Taylor Swift’s very public romance with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Just her mere appearance in suite boxes, for games in Kansas City and on the road, would top daily search trends and spawn fan fiction that disguised itself as news coverage. Fans wanting to crown a new champion, and primitives uncomfortable in watching a woman receive all the attention in their man league, formed an alliance of their own. Rooting against the team so that the pop star, and her fan base that colonized the sport, would find somewhere else to linger on Sundays.

But nothing can stop this football team, nor the impact of a singular woman with wavy, blond bangs and red-stained lips. While both are too muscular and mighty to be pushed aside, hers is a particularly ferocious power, gaining in strength as traditionalist fans, sports media and even well-meaning football players accept that the only way to survive the chokehold that her cultural phenomenon has on the league is to tap out and submit to it.

“I better start doing my research, that’s (for sure)!” second-year Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie told me, smiling, in response to the inquiry if he’s ready for all the Taylor Swift questions at the Super Bowl. “I (stay) in my own lane. Happy for Trav, you know. Do what he got to do, but I ain’t got much to say about that.”

While in the M&T Bank Stadium press box Sunday, I overheard a male reporter talking with a peer, and praising Chiefs vs. Ravens, Patrick Mahomes versus Lamar Jackson as the premier matchup of the season, in spite of all the attention on Taylor Swift. He didn’t elaborate on his expletive-laden comment, but the acid pouring from his lips might have been from the bitter aftertaste of backlash, because the league and its media partners have force-fed viewers with constant reminders that Swift is a football fan now. If her boyfriend catches a first-down pass, the cameras will zoom in on her celebration inside the suites. If her boyfriend’s teammate scores a touchdown, the cameras will zoom in on her jazz hand celebrations inside the suites. If CBS needs to promote the Grammys, the cameras will zoom in on her simply existing inside the suites.

Football telecasts for Swift feel like the world’s largest fish bowl, and many of us have been given season passes to an aquarium we would rather stop visiting. Personally, I’m not a fan of the oversaturation, of watching her every joyous reaction to a Chiefs touchdown as though she had just discovered the key to creating A-gap pressure. But then again, I also don’t mind watching misogynists squirm.

Criticism over coverage can exist without aiming gender-specific vitriol at Swift and those who delight in her. Some men, however, cannot mask their hatred when a woman steps out of her place and thrives in theirs. And not just thrives – dominates. More than 50 million viewers tuned into the Chiefs’ divisional-round playoff game against the Buffalo Bills. Of course, the matchup between today’s Brady and Manning – Mahomes and Josh Allen – would draw huge numbers on its own. However, the newfound buzz around the Chiefs as the NFL’s “it” team, and the expectation of all those Swift reaction shots – which CBS obliged – also had an impact. So, on Feb. 11 when the network airs the Super Bowl, the game just might draw record-shattering numbers. I can think of worse things happening in the world than a boorish and miserable man having to stomach more Swift close-ups along with his chicken wings.

For anyone who viewed Jackson as the last hope to keep America from enduring two weeks of Swift Bowl I coverage, they did not find a willing accomplice in the presumptive MVP. Jackson became the Swifties’ favorite when he tried to fit a touchdown pass into triple coverage and instead threw an interception. Also, Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken might get backstage passes during the international leg of the Eras Tour for limiting his offense by refusing to call more run plays. These Ravens couldn’t stop the Chiefs. No team can.

Kansas City, once stumbling, has regained strength. And Kelce, with his 11 catches for 116 yards and a touchdown, became the all-time NFL leader in postseason receptions. He may come across as Icarus flying too close to the sun in his pursuit of fame, but Kelce proves again and again that when the lights burn brighter, he gets better.

“I think Trav has about as cool of a head as you can put on a pair of shoulders. He might get in little scuffles on the field, but he don’t let anything distract from the fact that he’s the greatest player in the world,” his brother, Jason Kelce, told me on the field as the Chiefs celebrated their AFC title. “I know it’s been a rough standard, for a lot of the outside perspective for Trav, so I’m really happy that in the postseason he showed up and he’s really made a difference for his team.”

There was so much cigar smoke coming from the Chiefs’ dressing area Sunday night – a cramped, minimally ventilated locker room for the visitors to M&T Bank Stadium – that it reddened the eyes of even bystanders. The speaker blasting trap music over defensive tackle Chris Jones’ locker was headache-inducing loud as well – another assault on the senses. Kelce, the boyfriend of an A-Lister who is the best to ever play his position in the NFL, maneuvered around his disrobing teammates, the credentialed reporters and security with earpieces. He was wearing black boxers, a black shirt, a black beanie, dark sunglasses. After using his normal voice to request something from a locker room attendant, for seemingly no reason at all, he shouted over the music: “Yeah, baby! Yeah, baby!”

The Chiefs are going to Las Vegas. So is Taylor Swift. Might as well get used to them because, together, they are never going out of style.