When the Patriots traded Rob Gronkowski on Tuesday, many saw it as a minor insult to Bill Belichick. After all, Gronk was willing to come back, but not play in New England. That's the reason why the Pats sent him to Tampa Bay, which was the only place he wanted to play.
As it turns out, Gronk's decision to return was less about Belichick and more about Tom Brady.
On Wednesday, Gronkowski had an introductory Zoom press conference and said that had Brady [...]
When the Patriots traded Rob Gronkowski on Tuesday, many saw it as a minor insult to Bill Belichick. After all, Gronk was willing to come back, but not play in New England. That's the reason why the Pats sent him to Tampa Bay, which was the only place he wanted to play.
As it turns out, Gronk's decision to return was less about Belichick and more about Tom Brady.
On Wednesday, Gronkowski had an introductory Zoom press conference and said that had Brady returned to the Patriots, he also would've considered coming back to New England. The 30-year-old met with Brady two months ago and told him that he was thinking about coming back. Gronkowski didn't rule out returning to the Patriots, but only wanted to catch passes from Brady.
“We actually got together two months ago. We rarely talked about what his decision was going to be,” Gronkowski said. “But we did talk about, for one second, real quick like, ‘hey, I'm kind of getting that fire underneath me again,' I told him. I said, ‘I'm definitely interested in the decision 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 and even if you go back to the Patriots and the opportunity is right, there's a possible chance that I would definitely love to reconnect.'
“That's where the conversation started. He was all fired up and all juiced up about it. That was pretty cool at the moment. In the end, it happened over time, which is pretty neat.”
Gronkowski admitted that playing for the Patriots wasn't easy, but said that's something Belichick admitted to the team a lot. The tight end said he was grateful for his nine seasons in Foxboro and was very complimentary of Belichick and Patriots owner Robert Kraft. He called Belichick “hands down the best coach in football” and said he looks up to Belichick and Kraft.
For Patriots fans, Tuesday was a gut punch. After seeing Brady sign a two-year deal with Tampa Bay, Gronk decided to return and join his quarterback. In one offseason, the Patriots lost two Hall-of-Famers to the Bucs. Perhaps making the sting worse is that Gronkowski says he likely would've returned to the Patriots had the Pats brought back Brady.
“I would've definitely looked at the opportunity, for sure. Hands down,” Gronkowski said of coming back to Foxboro. “When he was going through that free agent process, I was interested to see where he was going to go… At that moment, I was still up in the air, too. I really didn't know if I was going to go or not. I wasn't sure if I was going to play. I had a little fire under me, but (returning to the Patriots) would've definitely been an opportunity I would've looked at for sure because playing with Tom is special. He's one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time…
“It just happened to be the right opportunity down in Tampa. Tom was like the appetizer of the whole meal. He got me hooked when he went down to Tampa. I saw what was down there – the opportunity to go down there and play with that type of offense… I'm definitely looking forward to that.”
mdaniels@providencejournal.com
On Twitter: @MarkDanielsPJ