Let’s hope the Gronk trade rumors are always wrong
Don’t do it, Bill.
I write this with the resignation of knowing that someday the very thing that I don’t want to happen will. But until that bummer of a day comes, I’ll continue to reiterate my recurring football plea:
The Patriots had better not trade Rob Gronkowski.
Shop him for the sake of due diligence if you want. Threaten it if you must. But don’t do it, Bill.
Not now, not next week, not at the trading deadline, and not at any point in the near future so long as the Patriots are still reasonably questing to add to that Lombardi Trophy collection.
I’ll keep reiterating this, too, right up until the day comes eventually when … well, when Rob Gronkowski is traded by the Patriots.
It feels inevitable, doesn’t it? Gronkowski checks most if not all of the boxes on Belichick’s tried-and-true, wholly unsentimental list of reasons to move on from an accomplished veteran player.
He’s battled serious injuries. His 30s are in sight. He’s not entirely with the program – and in Gronkowski’s case, as with Tom Brady’s, his absence from team activities can be interpreted as outright defiance. His contract ends soon and he’s in line for a lucrative extension. He’s talked openly about pondering retirement.
That’s why it seemed so reasonable and real Friday when rumors of a major Patriots move began percolating. Chatter that Gronkowski was going to be dealt to the San Francisco 49ers or Tennessee Titans until Brady used all of the leverage in his power to nix it quickly was proved to be total nonsense by reporters with actual sources.
While speaking Tuesday at the Myra Kraft Community MVP event at Gillette Stadium, Patriots owner Robert Kraft emphasized that there was no truth to those particular rumors.
“I guess when your team is good, people are looking for things,’’ he said. “I’ll just tell you it’s a bunch of hogwash that I vetoed some trade that was never in the works. It’s just completely made up.’’
That’s easy enough to believe, though I also believe that Gronkowski’s name has come up in real trade conversations over the past several months. Trading him would fit with some of the other uncommonly strange things have happened with the Patriots over the last year or so. It’s still bewildering why Belichick received only a second-round pick for Jimmy Garoppolo. Or why Malcolm Butler’s contributions in the Super Bowl was a standing-room only spot on the sideline. Or why Brady, who should be the most appreciated football player in history, feels like he can’t get his due from his coach.
The Patriots were a play or two away from winning their sixth Super Bowl last season, yet things have felt off-center for a while now – before that game, during it, and still in the aftermath. Yeah, the Gronk rumors were believable, because trading him would not have been the most unbelievable development to occur with this team over the past several months.
A Gronkowski trade felt almost imminent Friday. That tense awaiting of news led suckers like, uh, me to get duped by some of the conjecture that was populating social media. It was a fake Adam Schefter account that got me, a phony report saying Gronk had been traded to the Cleveland Browns. I realized the Fraud Schefter didn’t have a blue checkmark roughly .2 seconds after I retweeted it, but that was .2 seconds too late.
Hate you, fake account Twitter.
Damn, did that ever seem like something Belichick would do.
I recognize that some decision is going to have to come on Gronkowski relatively soon. His contract expires after the 2019 season, during which he is scheduled to earn a $9 million salary. He makes $8 million this year.
His desire for a contract more commensurate with his status as an All-Pro tight end and one-man destructor of pass defenses is understandable – he has the scars to prove his time to earn a jackpot as a player is starkly finite.
But it’s not necessarily easy to sympathize, either. He signed the deal he’s currently under when his football future was murkier than it is now.
Here’s hoping the latest reports about his status are true and a new contract with the Patriots is “likely’’ to come relatively soon.
Though his position is obviously less important, the fundamental reason to keep Gronkowski is the same reason to keep Brady: He’s the best there has ever been at his position, and if he’s not quite at the peak of his powers right now, he’s still at heights few have ever reached.
Beyond that, there’s this simple truth: The Patriots are more enjoyable when Gronkowski is healthy, happy, and wreaking havoc on Sundays. He’s a unique force on the field, and a unique persona away from it, authentic, mostly guileless, and out to enjoy every moment.
Who else would go to the Belmont to meet a horse he invested in because it bore his name (imagine what Gronk the horse thought of the Gronkowski man-children: “Get a load of these meatheads. Anyone got a carrot?’’), then headed back to Massachusetts in time to fulfill a commitment at a football camp?
Gronkowski would be easy to root for even if he weren’t the most dominant tight end in NFL history. But he is also that, still.
I’m not falling for any more fake Gronk trades. And I really hope there’s no reason to have to believe a real one.
