Rob Gronkowski Credits Patriots Defender For Aiding Legendary Career

While Rob Gronkowski made things look easy at times on the football field during his legendary career with the New England Patriots, it wasn’t always like that.

Sometimes practices were a grind for Gronkowski, and that was because of a specific Patriots defender matched up on the hulking tight end.

Gronkowski and Patrick Chung went head-to-head plenty of times on the practice fields outside Gillette Stadium and Gronkowski credited his former Patriots teammate for helping shape the player he became.

“I wouldn’t have been the type of player I was without Patrick Chung,” Gronkowski said on the “Up & Adams” show on Wednesday. “And I would say vice versa with Patrick Chung, too. I feel like I made him a better player as well. But we battled in practice. He was the nickel guy that covered me every single down in practice when we faced the New England Patriots defense, and let me tell you, we had some serious battles.

“He’s aggressive. He doesn’t back down. He’s not scared of anything. He’s not scared of my height, he’s not scared of my size, he doesn’t care how much I weighed and he brought it to the table every time. There were some days I whopped him, though, and there were some days he whopped me.”

Gronkowski and Chung were teammates for eight seasons with New England and the two won three Super Bowl titles together.

And while there was mutual respect between Gronkowski and Chung, there was also a competitive side. Chung started off the segment on “Up & Adams” by asking Gronkowski who won more battles in practice between them and Gronkowski wasn’t bashful when it came to his answer.

“I would say, who won the majority of the battles? You told me not to lie, and it was me, Patrick Chung. I won the majority of the battles,” Gronkowski said. “I would say 60% of them and you only won 40%.”

But Gronkowski didn’t gloat for too long, and once again, offered heartfelt praise to Chung.

“But I want to say thank you for your service of making me a better player and thank you for being a great teammate,” Gronkowski said. “That’s why we won so many championships together because we’re a team and we got better in practice.”