Football players dating cheerleaders is a tale as old as time, but it's usually reserved for high school and/or John Hughes movies, and it almost always involves partners along the same sideline. When it happens at the NFL level, in real life, and between a player and cheerleader from opposing squads, it's considered slightly scandalous, a little adorbs and positively newsworthy — as in the case of the Cincinnati Bengals' kicker Cade York and his Dallas Cowboys cheerleader girlfriend Zoe Dale.

Much attention was drawn to York and Dale's relationship when the Bengals and Cowboys met in Week 14 on Monday Night Football. It was a fairly kismet situation — Cade York had just been promoted to the active squad to fill in for injured Bengals kicker Evan McPherson, and his very first kick for the team would be an extra point attempt in front of his girlfriend Dale, who was busy cheering on the Cowboys across the field.

Would she still root for her boyfriend York even though he's on the other team? She did, and he made the kick, with cameras at the ready on Zoe Dale to hear her say “Praise God” when the ball sailed through the uprights.

Later, when the Bengals defeated the Cowboys, Dale congratulated York with a sweet postgame kiss and the made-for-TV romantic NFL moment was complete.

How Cade York and Zoe Dale started dating

But how did these two come to start dating in the first place?!

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All they've said publicly is that the relationship began this past summer. That doesn't give us insatiable NFL romantics the “meet-cute” this story desperately needs.

It also doesn't completely absolve York and Dale from sparking up a relationship with a professional rival. York, who was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 2022, was traded to the Washington Commanders two years later and remained on the team until September of this year when he was waived. That means he was on the Commanders when he started dating Dale which is actually ludicrously more scandalous since Washington and Dallas are division rivals!

Regardless, love somehow found a way, and when he was signed by the Bengals in early December, the stage was set for a Romeo and Juliet-esque forbidden romance.

And York and Dale haven't shied away from sharing the narrative. York joked in an interview about seeing Dale “at home no matter what” when he found out he'd be on the Bengals just in time for their matchup against the Cowboys. And Dale shared that interview to her Instagram Story with the message “Go Cade & Go Cowboys!”

So there you have it. We're still not entirely sure how this love story came to be, but the only question that's really necessary to answer at this point is who will play Cade York and Zoe Dale in their inevitable Hallmark Christmas movie.