It goes without saying that, both on the field and off it, there's no replacing retired tight end Rob Gronkowski.
Fourth in a 10-part series previewing the 2019 Patriots.
FOXBORO – Safe to say, barring an audible by the main character in this soap opera, both on the field and off it, the tight end position will never be the same in New England.
For that matter, it will never be the same in the NFL as a whole.
Patriots offensive coordinator-quarterbacks coach Josh McDaniels put it best in a statement released by the team on March 25, one day after Rob Gronkowski, the team’s tight end who was an All-Pro talent and All-World personality, had announced his retirement from the game at the age of 29: “There will never be another Gronk.”
No, you can’t replace the guy and, fact is, the Patriots didn’t even try – not in the draft, at least.
While many NFL draftniks figured the Super Bowl champions would invest their choice at the tail end of the first round in a tight end (Alabama’s Irv Smith Jr.?), the April draft came and went with nary a pick utilized on the position, the (in)action all the more surprising when one considers the fact that Dwayne Allen, the team’s blocking tight end the past two years, was released and signed by Miami prior to Gronkowski’s departure.
The biggest offseason move the Patriots made at the position didn’t come until May and had a back-to-the-future story to it.
Thirty-eight-year-old Benjamin Watson, a first-round pick of the Patriots in 2004, was brought back for a second stint, signed to a one-year, $3 million contract. The 6-foot-3, 251-pounder, who caught 35 passes for 400 yards and two touchdowns in 16 games with New Orleans last season, had originally announced his retirement from the game, then changed his mind.
Ironically, it was Watson’s departure for Cleveland as an unrestricted free agent following the 2009 season that preceded the Patriots’ selections of Gronkowski (in the second round) and fellow tight end Aaron Hernandez (fourth) in the 2010 draft. Now, one decade after he played his last game with the Pats, Watson is back – although he won’t be at the start of the regular season.
While he’ll be in training camp with the team and allowed to play in the preseason, Watson, viewed as the No. 1 tight end on head coach Bill Belichick’s depth chart, must serve a four-game suspension from the NFL at the outset of the regular season, his punishment for testing positive for testosterone, a medication he was prescribed during his retirement – legal, yes, but one that is on the league’s list of banned substances.
Watson’s plight has further contributed to the tight bind the Patriots find themselves in.
While the Pats ignored the kids coming out of college in the draft, they did make other moves at the position involving players with NFL experience.
Twenty-six-year-old Matt LaCosse (6-foot-6, 255), who caught 24 passes for 250 yards and a touchdown with Denver last season, was signed early in free agency and, for what it’s worth, made a favorable impression at last month’s team minicamp.
Another 26-year-old, former Tampa Bay Buccaneer-New York Jet-Jacksonville Jaguar Austin Seferian-Jenkins (6-foot-5, 262), was signed later during the offseason, but never made it to minicamp. Signed in April, Seferian-Jenkins was released in early June, reportedly so he could take care of some personal issues.
Michael Roberts’ stay was even briefer. Acquired in a trade with Detroit one day in June, the deal was negated the following day when the third-year veteran failed his physical. The 25-year-old was subsequently waived by the Lions, claimed by Green Bay and promptly went oh-for-2 in physicals, failing that team’s checkup as well.
Prior to any of that, the Patriots decided to move on from Jacob Hollister, shipping the former rookie free agent to Seattle following his second year here, receiving just a seventh-round draft pick in 2020 in exchange for a player who had his own physical issues in 2018, limiting him to four catches for 52 yards in eight games.
Beyond Watson and LaCosse, Stephen Anderson (6-foot-3, 230) also has experience, the 26-year-old catching 36 passes for 435 yards and two touchdowns over two seasons prior to his release from the Houston Texans during the final cuts a year ago. A member of the Patriots’ practice squad for most of the 2018 season, Anderson was promoted to the 53-man roster in January but didn’t dress for a game.
Six-foot-five and 255 pounds, Ryan Izzo was a seventh-round draft pick out of Florida State last year who came in with the reputation of being more of a blocker than a pass-catching threat (54 receptions over four seasons with the Seminoles) and impressed with the physical nature of his game early last summer (he also caught three passes for 15 yards in two preseason games), but he spent the season on the injured reserve list with an ankle injury.
Signed out of Texas as a rookie free agent following this year’s draft, 6-foot-3, 255-pound Andrew Beck, like Izzo, is more of a blocker than a pass-catching threat (just 40 catches over four seasons with the Longhorns) at the position.
Finally, if nothing else, 24-year-old Jakob Johnson will provide an interesting case as a fullback-tight end in camp. A native of Stuttgart, Germany, who played his college ball at Tennessee, Johnson (6-foot, 3, 250) will be in camp as part of the NFL’s international gateway program, meaning he won’t count against the 90-man roster the Patriots are allowed to bring to camp and could be kept as an 11th player, if they so choose, on their practice squad.
As for Gronkowski, might he consider a return at some point?
The retiree did little to answer that question during a recent appearance on the “Rich Eisen Show,” saying “just relaxing right now feels good” but adding “I can’t really say how I’m going to feel about it when the games start rolling around and everything.”
Since then, Gronkowski has returned to the field with quarterback Tom Brady, confirming to TMZ Sports that he recently caught passes from his longtime batterymate during a workout at UCLA.
The plot thickened on Tuesday of this week when Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio wrote that a source close to Gronkowski “pegs his potential for a first annual unretirement at 40 percent.”
Next, a look at the wide receiver position that’s undergone a big makeover this offseason.