Pro Football 101: Rob Gronkowski ranks No. 43 on all-time list
By Joe Posnanski
Special to FOX Sports
Editor's Note: Throughout 2021 and 2022, Joe Posnanski is ranking the 101 best players in pro football history in collaboration with FOX Sports. Posnanski will publish a detailed look at all 101 players on Substack. The countdown continues today with player No. 43, Rob Gronkowski.
A few years ago, my friend Chris Jones wrote a fantastic story about Gordy Gronkowski, the patriarch of the incredible Gronkowski family. Gordy has five sons, four of whom have played in the NFL. The other played minor league baseball.
All of them played the most violent version of their particular games — two Gronk tight ends, one Gronk fullback, one Gronk smash-mouth running back and a Gronk slugging designated hitter.
It is definitely a type, being a Gronkowski.
If you didn’t know, you would probably guess the Gronkowskis grew up in Buffalo. That seems like the right city for Gronks. And they did.
If you didn’t know, you would probably guess that the Gronkowski brothers had a great-grandfather named, I don’t know, Iggy, who lived his whole life in Buffalo and made it to the Olympics as, oh, let’s say as a cyclist.
Yeah, that’s all true.
If you didn’t know, you would probably guess that Gordy Gronkowski and his brother (who probably also had a G name of some type, like "Glenn") opened up a chain of fitness stores called something like "G&G Fitness." And, furthermore, you’d guess they had a bunch of that fitness equipment in their basement, and the Gronk brothers all tried to outdo one another on the machines. And that they would play ferociously and violently in every sport imaginable.
"Usually, furniture ends up getting broken" is probably how Gordie Gronkowski would talk about those games.
And that’s all true, too.
The Gronkowski brothers’ playing sizes:
Gordie Gronkowski: 6-foot-6, 250 pounds
Dan Gronkowski: 6-foot-6, 255 pounds
Chris Gronkowski: 6-foot-2, 239 pounds
Rob Gronkowski: 6-foot-6, 265 pounds
Glenn Gronkowski: 6-foot-3, 234 pounds
If you didn’t know better, you would probably guess that Gordy Gronkowski played college football himself, and then he got hurt, and then he instilled in his sons a bit of his own competitive fury, a touch of the fire that drove him as a young man and a bunch of Gronk principles that he would tape to the refrigerator door because that’s the one place he was sure to get the five boys’ attention.
That’s not only true, but also Gordy Gronk put so many quotes on that refrigerator door that at one point, the boys started complaining they couldn’t keep up.
In this way, Rob Gronkowski is not so much an NFL superstar — a one-of-a-kind talent as a tight end — as he is an inevitability. The Gronks are coming to get you, and Rob just happened to be the Gronk with a little more size, a little more speed and a little more hunger for the football and the end zone.
He played every sport in high school — all the Gronks did. Rob was so good in high school that his transfer from Williamsville High near Buffalo to Woodland Hills High in Pittsburgh was front-page news. Gordy moved, too, because he had several G&G Fitness stores in Pittsburgh, but he made it clear in the paper why he was making the move.
"There’s just not the quality of football in the state of New York that there is here," he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "We want him to play with good talent around him instead of getting triple-teamed."
That quote caught the eye of the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League, which initially ruled Rob ineligible. "The whole thing was a setup," Gordie Gronkowski grumbled, but the WPIAL then reversed itself, and Rob became a monster for Woodland Hills, scoring two touchdowns against Fox Chapel, blocking a punt and returning it for a touchdown against Plum, playing ferocious linebacker for a team that did not give up a single point for four straight games, etc.
He then went on to basketball stardom, scoring 32 against Woodland Hills’ rival, Central Catholic. At least 31 different Division I programs offered Rob a scholarship, including Ohio State, Clemson and his dad’s alma mater, Syracuse. Rob chose Arizona, mainly so he and his brother, Glenn, could go to the same school (Glenn decided to transfer to Arizona to walk-on for the baseball team).*
*Gronkowski was such a good prospect that newspapers throughout South Carolina wrote about how Clemson coaches were "stunned" when he chose Arizona.
Gronkowski was an immediate star at Arizona — and was immediately doing Gronk things. In a 2007 game, he caught four passes for 115 yards and a touchdown against Washington State, but the thing everyone saw was when he ran over Cougars DB Alfonso Jackson, who had a clear shot at him. "Everyone says I hit people and knock them over," Gronk said. "I don’t even notice. I keep running."
After his sophomore season — he missed the first three games due to mono but then scored 10 touchdowns in 10 games — Gronkowski was one of the top NFL prospects in America. But he missed his entire junior season after back surgery and then boldly declared himself eligible for the NFL Draft anyway.
Nobody really knew how that would turn out. Gronk’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, guaranteed that he would go in the first round, but he didn’t. Teams kept passing on him until the most unexpected thing happened. Patriots coach Bill Belichick had been intrigued by Gronkowski’s great size and strength — but he would say there just wasn’t much to go on when it came to Gronk’s desire and sense of the game.
So Belichick was putting a lot of stock into the pre-draft visit. He talked a bit with Gronkowski, then left to go get other coaches. When he returned … Gronkowski was sleeping on the floor.
"Didn’t make a good impression," Belichick would later say.
But he must have made a good enough impression because Belichick and the Patriots traded up in the second round to grab him with the 42nd overall pick of the 2010 draft. The Patriots traded up to the pick before Baltimore because the Ravens were interested in Gronk, too.
"It was an excellent choice" was Gronkowski’s draft analysis.
By the way: I love this scouting report that appeared the next day in The Boston Globe:
"One of the knocks is that he’s not off-the-line quick and might not dazzle defenders with his running ability after the catch."
Sometimes scouts don’t get it exactly right.
Gronkowski’s NFL talents are still on display — he is simply the most complete force to ever play tight end. There have been tight ends who were faster, better route-runners, better pass-catchers, even better blockers, but not all four. With Gronkowski, you can’t cover him. You can’t tackle him. You can’t go through him.
And I would say no tight end ever took more balls away from defenders than Gronkowski has. For a Patriots fan — and now a Buccaneers fan — it’s a thing of beauty. But for the fans of every other team, it has been agonizing to see Tom Brady facing a third-and-long and throwing to a tight end who does not look open and then seeing Gronk pull the ball in anyway. Because that’s what he does, and that’s who he is.
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Earlier this year, Rob Gronkowski sat down with Erin Andrews to talk about having the privilege of continuing his career with Tom Brady as a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The numbers are impressive enough — approaching 10,000 yards receiving, 92 touchdowns, 15 more touchdowns in the playoffs, four-time All-Pro — but they don’t capture the impact he has had, even as he has dealt constantly with the unavoidable injuries that come with playing like Gronk.
In the 143 games Gronkowski has played, his teams are 111-32. That’s a 77.6% winning percentage, even higher than Tom Brady’s. Gronk has played 13 or more games in seven seasons. In five of those, his team went to the Super Bowl, winning three. You would think there’s only so much a tight end can do to help a team win. But Gronk has stretched the limits.
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Rob Gronkowski is versatile enough to have hosted Wrestlemania and the Kids' Choice Awards. Here's a look at some of his WWE appearances.
And, of course, he has done it all with wonderful Gronk style — the guy is just so absurdly lovable that ZooTampa named a rhino after him. There have been breakfast cereals, energy drinks and hot sauces named for him, too. He has hosted Wrestlemania and the Kids’ Choice Awards, and he gets away with those daffy USAA commercials in which the conceit seems to be that he’s trying to get insurance even though he’s not a veteran.
Yes, Gronk is one of a kind — except we know that he isn’t. There are several Gronks roaming the Earth. Rob is just the one with the Super Bowl rings.
Joe Posnanski is a New York Times bestselling author and has been named the best sportswriter in America by five different organizations. His latest book, "The Baseball 100," came out last September.