Rob Gronkowski hinted toward and shut down the idea of an NFL return ever since he retired.
After the first few times, it became difficult to take Gronkowski seriously. He missed the entire 2019 season and didn’t look like he’d ever put on an NFL uniform again. That all changed when Tom Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — and Gronkowski followed right behind him.
Gronkowski, 30, will continue his Hall of Fame career in Tampa Bay and spoke about the decision to return. He threw the football around with Brady before signing the contract and hinted to a future in the league.
“We rarely talked about what his decision was gonna be, where I’m at,” Gronkowski said. “But we did talk about [it] for one second. I told him that — we talked just real quick — like, ‘Hey, I’m kinda getting that fire underneath me again.’
“I said, ‘I’m definitely interested in your decision that you make.’ I didn’t put any pressure on him. I said, ‘If there’s a right opportunity out there, and you go somewhere and that opportunity is right — even if you go back to the Patriots and I feel like the opportunity is right — there’s a possible chance that I would definitely love to reconnect.'”
Gronkowski said Brady was fired up after hearing the news.
“Playing with Tom is special. He’s one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time,” said Gronkowski. “And to build a connection with a quarterback, too, is something special. You’ve seen it many times with many other players — they can switch teams, and they might not have the same chemistry as they’d have with one of their other quarterbacks. So we have a great chemistry out there. And every time we get together, it’s just like the old days. It doesn’t matter if we take a month off or six months apart; we just go out there and we’re throwing the ball just like it’s a normal practice, no matter what.”
Brady and Gronkowski connected for 78 touchdowns in New England and formed one of the most dominant duos in NFL history. Gronkowski’s laundry list of injuries forced him to retire early, but he says he’s in a better place now.
“My body started feeling good. My desire to play the game of football was coming back,” Gronkowski said. “And I knew that, by the time the season would be rolling around again, I would want to be back out there. So that desire, that passion, has lit into me, and I just felt like, in the last couple weeks, it was the right time to hop on before it was too late.”
[vertical-gallery id=83257]