Rob Gronkowski. The brittle, not so gentle, giant.
Commodity’s like Gronkowski come around once in a lifetime. There will most likely never be another tight end to play the game, and play it at the level Gronkowski does.
That being said, Gronkowski is a smash mouth player and believes in the take no prisoners aspect of the game. Heck, that’s how he lives life. This mindset has cost him playing time due to a surplus of injures.
However, in Sunday’s shootout against the AFC East rival New York Jets, Gronkowski returned to full fledged beast mode once more, after missing the week 5 matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
He had six receptions off of 10 targets, for 83 yards, and two touchdowns. On one play, Brady and company were inside their own 10-yard line. Brady dropped back and threw a floater from the 4-yard line to Gronkowski, where he was well covered by linebacker Darron Lee, reached up to the top shelf and pulled the ball away from Lee.
Lee 6-foot-1, looked like a child compared to the giant and it resulted in a 28-yard gain and a first down.
Gronkowski said the following on his return:
“It went smooth,” Gronkowski said, who returned after a one-game absence with a thigh contusion. “We got the victory. Everything didn’t go as well as you thought it would. . . . It’s always a dogfight coming in (against the Jets), and just coming out with a victory is huge.”
A dogfight is an understatement. It was the clash of the titans. The Patriots were lucky once again to walk away with a win. After a questionable fumble call came in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, which gave the Patriots possession and time to run out the clock.
The Patriots take on the high powered Atlanta Falcons in Week 7. Having Gronkowski at full strength is huge, as he was missing for the Super Bowl LI matchup.
