After winning Super Bowl XXV as a member of the New York Giants, legendary tight end Mark Bavaro faced a long offseason of recovery. His body was battered and bruised, his physical style of play was taking a toll and he needed to undergo surgery to repair a serious knee injury.
As far as Bavaro knew at the time, he was headed for retirement.
However, after sitting out the 1991 season, Bavaro’s body had healed, he was in a better place mentally and his love of the game returned. Subsequently, so did he.
Bavaro returned in 1992 as a member of the Cleveland Browns, and although things got off to a pretty rough start, everything eventually came back to him. And drawing on that experience, Bavaro can both relate to and understand Rob Gronkowski’s decision to return as a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers here in 2020.
“Gronk might end up having more catches than ever,” Bavaro told the Boston Globe, “because now Brady is not going to be hamstrung offensively, at least not as much as he was in New England, I don’t believe, and he’s going to be struggling a little bit with a new system and environment, so guess who is going to be his security blanket?
“Gronk really did get beat up that last year with the Patriots, when they really had no other threats. Everybody just pounded on him. If you have other threats, you can’t do that.
“This could turn out to be pretty good for him.”
After nine punishing seasons with the New England Patriots, Gronkowski announced his retirement in 2019 and sat out the year. He did a slew of other things, dabbling in both media and professional wrestling, but when Tom Brady landed with Bruce Arians in Tampa Bay, the future Hall of Famer couldn’t resist the urge to return.
The desire to win another Super Bowl probably didn’t hurt, either.
“Any true football player is hungry for success, even the guys who might have given up on the hope of winning Super Bowls, that are in it for money, fame, personal glory, or stats,” Bavaro said, “and when there’s a hint or a whiff of a championship possibility, most of those guys will put that self-interest away.
“Everyone wants to be rich and famous, but a really true football player — and you have to be a true football player to get into the NFL — wants to win championships. The saddest part for most of these guys is that they get to that level, and they’ve got no shot. They’re not on a team that has the right plan; there’s no environment to win.
“Now, with a guy like Brady coming in, with Gronk joining him, who knows who else is going to jump on that bandwagon?”
Bavaro always thought Gronk would be back, but knew it wouldn’t come with the Patriots. And as it turns out, he was exactly right.
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