Rob Gronkowski Thinks He Could Play Another NFL Season ‘Right Now’

If the NFL started its 2021 season March 22, Rob Gronkowski is confident he’d be ready.

The Buccaneers tight end is eager to return to game action just over a month after Tampa Bay won Super Bowl LV, and thinks he’s already prepared to do so.

“I feel like I could play another season right now, if it started,” Gronkowski told reporters Monday, per ESPN. “I feel really good. … I feel light. I feel flexible. I feel like I can go out and just play some football, and just go out and not be in pain … run routes and do what I gotta do out there on the field. So I definitely feel like I’m ready to go, to play another full season coming up this year and just take it a year at a time like that.”

That’s a pretty interesting statement coming from someone who retired after the 2018 season due to the physical and mental toll the game had on him.

Gronkowski looked like a new man in 2020, collecting seven touchdowns for the first time since 2017. It was the first time he played all 16 regular-season games since 2011, too.

“This year, just playing all 20 games, all 16 regular-season games, not missing a practice, not missing a game, not missing anything in the postseason, it was a great feeling,” Gronkowski said.

“It was just something I wanted to prove to myself too, that I could do, to prove to myself that the things that I’ve learned and I’ve taken in and I’ve changed — that I can play a full season, I can play a full postseason at a high level, too,” he added. “It’s just great overall to complete that mission, and now I feel like I can do it again too.”

Gronkowski just re-signed with the Bucs on a one-year deal, but the tight end has made it clear that he intends to keep playing until his body has had enough. And apparently, he’s not there yet.