The New England Patriots might make it look easy, but being successful without Rob Gronkowski is much harder than it looks.
Gronkowski left the AFC Championship Game with a concussion, but New England was able to mount a furious second-half rally to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 24-20 and advance to Super Bowl LII.
The star tight end’s status for the Super Bowl remains up in the air, and despite the Patriots’ success without him against the Jags and in last season’s Super Bowl run, Tom Brady knows how important Gronk is to their title hopes.
“Well it may have seen seemlessly, but it really wasn’t,” Brady said Sunday on ESPN’s “NFL Countdown.” A lot of other guys had to fill in the slack. You know losing such a great player is hard for any offense. We don’t want to do that again, so I’m hoping he’s out there, you know, all the time. Obviously, he’s still working his way back, but Gronk is such a great player, great teammate, and we’ve got so many other guys though at receiver, at tight end, at running back that really did step in when he wasn’t out there. But we’re going to need him out there this week if we want to play our best.”
While Gronkowski declared himself “ready to roll” Monday on Instagram, he still will have to clear the NFL’s concussion protocol to suit up Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles at U.S. Bank Stadium.
