The NFL Paid Good Money For This Ed Sheeran Photoshoot and Football Fans Love It

The NFL knows what its fans want and that is Ed Sheeran. The English pop artist will perform at the NFL Kickoff 2021 Experience brought to you by the NFL's official video game on Thursday night. The NFL is very excited about this and they got Sheeran to sit down for a very nice photoshoot and they are going to get their money's worth of those photos, like when a parent accidentally orders way too many wallet-size school pictures. Here are the cream of the crop.

Obviously, the best one is the middle one the NFL posted on Instagram yesterday. Sheeran in the forefront with Dak Prescott and Tom Brady and Tom Brady's incredible head of hair in the background. Still, all three images of Sheeran say, "Football fans, football is back. Watch football!"

A full Sheeran concert before the first game of the season is definitely one of those "Who is this for?" things the NFL loves to do. If you're at an Ed Sheeran concert paid for by the NFL and Madden, are you really more likely to watch football? Maybe it's one of those things where the NFL has market research that shows it works. The ratings will tell the real story!