Go away, Gronk
COMMENTARY
Rob Gronkowski needs to go away.
It’s for his own good. This bro-tastic Summer of Gronk has admittedly been fun, but now it’s time to put down the beer bong, turn down the house music, and slip quietly back into the comparatively-relative anonymity of simply being the best NFL player at his position.
Everyone wants to catch some of the lightning in Rob Gronkowski’s perpetually half-filled bottle these days. But the New England Patriots’ tight end’s popularity has begun to teeter on the brink of an overexposure that threatens to treat his personal brand the way it has so many other come-and-go fads.
None of this is Gronkowski’s fault. He’s just a 26-year-old goofball enjoying a rehab-free offseason for the first time in years, coming off his first Super Bowl championship with the Patriots. There’s such a sincerity about Gronkowski’s personality that it’s infectious, a fact that he well understands to the degree of how he and his bros market it.
From the party bus to bikini-judging contests, Gronk is selling the millennial mindset, a non-stop party that has reached Vegas, Charleston, and, of course, Estero, Florida this offseason. His lifestyle isn’t an act, but this summer it’s also approaching the bloated stage, with Gronkowski plastered everywhere like some sort of modern day Spuds MacKenzie.
This week alone we’ve already had Dunkin’ Donuts’ collaboration of Gronkowski and Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, not to mention the announcement that Gronkowski would be hosting a party cruise (of course) next February.
Gronk’s business is clearly good for business. But this all feels sort of like it’s going down the path of the “I didn’t do it’’ kid, doesn’t it? I half-expect some nitwit entertainment reporter to show up at Patriots mini-camp next month and just ask Gronkowski to say something “goofy’’ for the camera.
For sure, the daily dive in the Summer of Gronk can be a bit much. We’re even bound to reach peak bro this week when the Gronkowski clan appears on “Celebrity Family Feud,’’ where host Steve Harvey asks the following question in a commercial that ran during the NBA Finals’ Game 3 on Tuesday night:
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Deflated footballs. Still funny, apparently.
But Gronkowski’s reaction to the “scandal’’ that has embroiled his team the past few months is also telling. This, after all, is a guy who brought levity (if not perhaps a smidgen of feigned anger after he had to deal with Wells Report questions at a charity function) to the whole situation last month by channelling Dr. Dre. Even this week in the wake of the Brandon Spikes hit-and-run incident and the linebacker’s ensuing release, there was Gronk for the online crowd, doing dumb stuff with Ortiz (who, admittedly sings better than he hits left-handed pitching these days) and serving as the most unlikely public relations vehicle for Bob Kraft’s franchise.
Indeed, the buttoned-down Patriots have benefited from a vodka-pounding free spirit during the troubles of their summer of stupidity.
It’s not like Gronkowski is in the public relations game, because frankly, he’s probably not smart enough. Nor is it like the Patriots roll him out to the public in times of need. He’s more just an inevitability at this point. Sit back and wait for the next Gronk development, sure to be something innocent enough that he won’t be called to the office, yet salacious enough that Deadspin will find room for it.
And the thing is, we don’t want to tire of it all. The Gronk Experience feels like it’s an earnest one, in direct contrast to so many other professional athlete personality campaigns that are either purely marketing-driven or faulted for trying way too hard (ahem, Julian Edelman). Gronkowski isn’t only a dominant athlete, he’s a towering figure off the field, all for reasons that come naturally to him. I’m not even sure Gronkowski knows what the word “marketing’’ means. Party, bro.
But we need a break. Soon. At least before he gets his own reality show on E!
Like that’s not coming.
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