Former NFL executive Andrew Brandt has offered a hot take about Rob Gronkowski so puzzling, it will make you question whether it was actually meant to be published as an April Fools’ Day joke a day late.
The former vice president of the Green Bay Packers now writes a weekly column for Sports Illustrated in which he offers his supposed expertise about the “business of football” or whatever. This week, however, the business of football included a head-scratching take about the recently retired Gronkowski that had, well, very little to do with business — or even football, really, for that matter.
Essentially, Brandt’s opinion is this: Gronkowski got a pass other players didn’t for his off-field antics, and that also might have contributed to Gronkowski’s lingering injuries in his brilliant but brief NFL career.
“‘Gronk being Gronk’ became an easy catchphrase and rationalization about behavior that (1) was certainly not admirable and (2) would not create the same response for other players,” Brandt wrote.
He adds: “I ask you to pick another player, any player; I will not pick one for you, as that would skew this experiment. Now imagine that player shown slamming beers, partying regularly with bikini-clad women and generally promoting a hard-party lifestyle. Would we say it’s just ‘him being him’ and let him have his fun? I doubt it.”
Brandt eventually yields that Gronkowski broke no laws or even rules by what he did off the field before taking a huge leap of logic, pleading with readers to “consider this: It is a fair question to ask whether Gronk would have been injured less and had a more productive career had he partied less?”
Uh … what?
Wondering whether Gronkowski got a pass where others were taken to task might be a fair point, but Gronkowski gets a pass in large part because he always performed on the field. But there’s an obvious issue with this take from Brandt, who declines to, you know, provide any examples of his supposed double standard. It borders on disrespectful to connect Gronkowski’s “hard-party lifestyle” (whatever that means) to the injury-prone nature of his career.
Those injuries didn’t stem from booze cruises or bikini-clad women, though. Hell, those things (which took place in the offseason, mind you) probably eased the pain Gronkowski suffered from playing his ass off during the season. Gronkowski was hurt so often because of the style he played. He wasn’t afraid to go across the middle, and he embraced run-blocking in a way few pass-catchers are willing to do. He was so hard to take down that opposing defenders felt they had to go low to take him out. Or who knows, maybe T.J. Ward was just so mad about this Gronkowski double standard that it made him take out Gronkowski’s knee back in 2013. Perhaps Earl Thomas had a similar thought running through his head when he unloaded on Gronkowski in double coverage in 2016. Everyone knows Barry Church’s clear hatred of the hard-party lifestyle is what drove him to concuss Gronkowski in the AFC Championship Game a couple years back. And that’s just a small smattering of the on-field abuse Gronkowski endured his entire career.
It’s seemingly impossible to find someone who worked inside the walls of 1 Patriot Place alongside Gronkowski who questioned his work ethic or commitment to being fully healthy. He had his reported run-ins with Bill Belichick and the Patriots training staff and might have caused annoyances at times, but part of the reported tug-of-war stemmed from Gronkowski’s insistence on adhering to Tom Brady’s workout regimen. The same workout and diet regimen Gronkowski credits for helping his career.
Think about that, too: There are far more stories about the Patriots being ticked off about Gronkowski’s workouts than his partying. They were more upset about what he was doing in the weight room and not the club or the yacht or wherever else Gronkowski found a good time in the offseason.
To say otherwise is kind of silly and borders on unfair.
“Gronk’s behavior led to rationalization,” Brandt writes in the final line of his column, “whereas the same behavior coming from others would typically lead to excoriation.”
Gronkowski’s behavior didn’t lead to rationalization. Nothing ever had to be rationalized. When healthy, he was the greatest to ever to play the position, and when he wasn’t healthy, it was because of the beating he took from trying to help his team win. To suggest otherwise is at best misguided and worse unfair.
