Rob Gronkowski’s overall disposition doesn’t typically fit in well with Bill Belichick’s. Although the tight end has no issues getting work done, he’s plenty goofy as opposed to Belichick’s oft-stoic way about him.
So it’s fair to wonder if part of Gronkowski’s decision to come back to the NFL was predicated on not playing for Belichick. After all, Gronk now is a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whose head coach, Bruce Arians, is known for being laid back.
But NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport indicated Wednesday on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” that Gronk’s decision to retire and, eventually, leave the Patriots was not tied to Belichick.
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“I’ve asked Gronk that question, I’ve asked him in a lot of different ways,” Rapoport said. “I got the sense talking to him at length that it was more about his body and the overall love (for the game) than it was for Bill. I mean yes, Bill is a very difficult coach to play for — he’s also very good and probably the greatest coach of all time. But it’s hard, and I think for Brady, too, it was hard. But the sense I always had with Gronk was physically he just did not feel like he could do it anymore. As beat up as he was, the amount of injuries he was dealing with, he didn’t love the game as much as he wanted and everything hurt. He never said ‘if Bill wasn’t there I would play,’ it was more just ‘I can’t play like this anymore.’
“And the other thing he told me was … he was watching film of himself and he was getting sick looking at what he was watching because that was not him. That was probably as much a reason as anything why he decided to retire was because he was watching himself and didn’t recognize him.”
If Gronkowski is coming back, then obviously he physically must be feeling much better. Time will tell though how exactly he fits into the Bucs’ system.
