Gronkowski mulling retirement

[Hammock Parties]

If Gronk retires...that offense is done.

Will Rob Gronkowski retire? Why the Patriots star's decision isn't easy

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/2...-decision-easy

When asked whether he had just played his last game, Gronkowski deferred.

"Tonight's about celebrating with our teammates," he said. "That decision will be made in a week or two."

Someone mentioned a hit he took during the game -- in the second quarter, he collided with a pair of Rams defenders after a short catch -- and he replied quickly, "Yeah, my quad. It hurts a lot. I can barely walk right now." He added, his delivery more deadpan than joyful: "But it's all good, because we're Super Bowl champs."

After the hit, Gronkowski, who played every snap, staggered off the field. Whenever he suffers a blow -- he has endured more than most players, in part because his gigantic frame makes it difficult for defenders to tackle him any other way -- he limps like a cinematic monster hobbled by arrows. The effect is similarly heartbreaking. Gronkowski had surgery on his spine before entering the league (explaining why the Patriots were able to snag him in the second round), and he has experienced a litany of painful injuries and operations over the years. This season, he missed three regular-season games, reportedly because he was suffering from Achilles tendinitis and a bulging disc in his back.

Earlier in the week, he acknowledged how difficult it has been for him to come back at times.

"Try to imagine getting hit all the time, and trying to be where you want every day in life," he said. "It's tough. It's difficult. To take hits to the thigh, to take hits to your head, abusing your body ... isn't what the brain wants."

After his news conference at the Super Bowl, Gronkowski trudged to the locker room, where he started peeling his pads off. As a staffer pulled his nametag off his locker (empty, save for a roll of tube socks and a half-eaten sandwich), Tom Brady's personal trainer, Alex Guerrero, walked over and gently unwrapped the tape on his arm. While his teammates sprayed champagne and danced on one side of the room, Gronkowski was quiet -- solemn, almost. A reporter asked him where he was partying, and he muttered in response: "We'll see, we'll see."

When he had changed into a towel, the large scar on his shoulder shiny with sweat, it was evident that his right thigh was absurdly swollen, to the point where it looked bloated. His movements were halting. I asked him if he was looking forward to the offseason -- potentially, the rest of his life -- and he smiled softly, "I'm super excited to just chill."

[Red Dawg]

Originally Posted by Titty Meat

9 mil is alot to walk away from

He won't be walking much longer anyway.

[Setsuna]

Hey OP wasn't Brady supposed to be done already? Your threads outside of Mahomes are trash tier.

[Red Dawg]

Originally Posted by Setsuna

Hey OP wasn't Brady supposed to be done already? Your threads outside of Mahomes are trash tier.

He may as well be. Bill got it done
Bradys 2 td and 3 int playoff performance is hardly good. Only reason he won was Dee Ford penalty on the same play he threw another int. Lucky overrated mother ****er.

[TEX]

Originally Posted by Red Dawg

He won't be walking much longer anyway.

[Dayze]

once he retires, he'll go from part-time, to full-time Bro.

[58-4ever]

Gronk will probably take about 69 more days to decide.

[Red Dawg]

Gronk has to have permission from Brady to retire. He won't as long as he doesn't have it.

[IUsedToBeATightEnd]

Gronk is all sore and maybe retiring, Brady is the shadow of what he used to be and half of the coaching staff is gone. I can see the pats going in "restructure" mode soon. They'll keep going to the playoffs for the next 20 yrs though, due to the division they're in, and facing BB in a playoff game is never easy.
That being said, the Pats dynasty as we know it has come to an end.

[Angry fan]

Originally Posted by Red Dawg

He may as well be. Bill got it done
Bradys 2 td and 3 int playoff performance is hardly good. Only reason he won was Dee Ford penalty on the same play he threw another int. Lucky overrated mother ****er.

What I find interesting is how the same reason he was drafted in the 6th round is the same reason people say he's overrated. After almost 20 years in the NFL, you'd think people would finally get it. Someones gotta lead the offense, and he's the guy that does it so well. I don't think Brady cares about stats before winning. So he'll happily just hand the ball off if that's the best course of action. That's what he did this season, gotta give it to him. He's a field general. Exactly what you want from your quarterback. I'd want Mahomes to become more like Brady and less like Rodgers. Save the heroics for the truly desperate situations.

I go back to that 4th down miracle throw against the Ravens. Two(one of them) ravens DB's blew the coverage, Mahomes should have thrown it to that receiver for a 1st down and get the clock stopped.

[stevegroganfan]

Originally Posted by Angry fan

What I find interesting is how the same reason he was drafted in the 6th round is the same reason people say he's overrated. After almost 20 years in the NFL, you'd think people would finally get it. Someones gotta lead the offense, and he's the guy that does it so well. I don't think Brady cares about stats before winning. So he'll happily just hand the ball off if that's the best course of action. That's what he did this season, gotta give it to him. He's a field general. Exactly what you want from your quarterback. I'd want Mahomes to become more like Brady and less like Rodgers. Save the heroics for the truly desperate situations.

I go back to that 4th down miracle throw against the Ravens. Two(one of them) ravens DB's blew the coverage, Mahomes should have thrown it to that receiver for a 1st down and get the clock stopped.

As a Patriots fan, I agree with you that the Chiefs should design their team to have Mahomes play more like Brady and go for the home run less. Go inside out but just use the outside threat to make the inside game easier. The Patriots with Moss learned, you may destroy most teams with the long ball threat but at a certain point, you may wish you had more of a short to intermediate passing game/running attack against the best teams.

I think the draft narrative is why Brady does get underrated in comparison to other qb's despite all of his accomplishments which include beating out a much more hyped QB in college that was a local favorite. Fans can point to all of his "good luck" which is often true to a certain extent since football in part is a game of luck but they forget to mention his bad luck. In his first two Super Bowl losses, the most important Patriot(Brady) and the second most important Patriot(Gronk) were playing hurt. Gronk's injury was severe. It was more minor but even against Philly Brady was playing hurt and Hightower/Edelman were out with season ending injuries and Cooks got concussed early. Injuries and freak plays are a part of the game -- Chiefs had them vs Patriots -- and the Patriots have had those things go for them and go against them. But in general have designed the team with a bit more depth so they can overcome injuries to starters like Chung or Rodney Harrison in the Super Bowl. Anyways, Brady beat out a former #1 pick in the draft who had very recently signed the first 100 million dollar contract for a QB in the NFL and had made pro bowls and had helped his team to Super Bowl several years earlier. And even when he was older and had lost his job was I believe still traded for a first round pick.

Brady excels at doing things that win a bunch of football games in the short to long run. He doesn't excel at doing things that look great at an NFL combine. But realistically, he has always had enough arm strength to get the job done and after a certain point, increased arm strength if you are throwing passes your hardest is a negative since receivers more likely to drop them.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

I'd bet anything Brady would have not been anywhere nearly as successful without BB. How would he have faired with the Browns or Jets???

If Dee Ford hadn't lined up in the neutral zone all the focus would have been how Brady blew their SB chance with a 3 int 0 TD performance and is this the end for him. One ****ing play completely changed the narrative.

**** Tom Brady and **** the Patriots!

[stevegroganfan]

Originally Posted by IUsedToBeATightEnd

Gronk is all sore and maybe retiring, Brady is the shadow of what he used to be and half of the coaching staff is gone. I can see the pats going in "restructure" mode soon. They'll keep going to the playoffs for the next 20 yrs though, due to the division they're in, and facing BB in a playoff game is never easy.
That being said, the Pats dynasty as we know it has come to an end.

There is no way in hell that the AFC East doesn't have another relatively strong team in the next 20 years. This Patriots fan recognizes the Patriots reign over AFC East will come to an end. The only question is whether its Dolphins, Bills or Jets but one of those 3 should make at least one Super Bowl over the next 20 years if not multiple Super Bowls.

Main reason Brady's numbers down this year were.
1) he did have a couple of week slump where he was uncharacteristically off with some of his passing. Blame some of that on age and you may be right. Brady brought in his qb coach and got on track.
2) Edelman suspended 4 games.
3) Gronk is slowing down a bit as a receiver and he was injured a lot this year.
4) no very good outside receiving threat.
5) Brady is happy to hand the ball off to a running back at goal line if that is the best option. Patriots had a good rookie running back score a bunch of TDs.

So Brady should decline next year since he is a year older but his numbers may go up if Patriots get a couple of very good outside threats or an outside threat and a better backup to Edelman and/or Gronk.

BB has such a great reputation that while Patriots may not win another Super Bowl the next 6-7 years especially if BB decides to replace Brady with a veteran QB or gets lucky drafting a replacement, I wouldn't be surprised if the Patriots make playoffs 4 or 5 of them even if another team in AFC East becomes team to beat in the division or even conference. (I am guessing Brady misses playoffs in his last year due to declining performance and/or injuries.) Once you are in the playoffs if you have a competent QB or above and a relatively healthy team, anything can happen in a given year. Odds are stacked in favor of better QBs/better teams but lesser QBs/lesser teams still have a chance.

1985 Patriots are evidence of lesser QBs. Went to Super Bowl with Tony Eason and beat Dan Marino in Miami along the way.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Originally Posted by stevegroganfan

There is no way in hell that the AFC East doesn't have another relatively strong team in the next 20 years. This Patriots fan recognizes the Patriots reign over AFC East will come to an end. The only question is whether its Dolphins, Bills or Jets but one of those 3 should make at least one Super Bowl over the next 20 years if not multiple Super Bowls.

Main reason Brady's numbers down this year were.
1) he did have a couple of week slump where he was uncharacteristically off with some of his passing. Blame some of that on age and you may be right. Brady brought in his qb coach and got on track.
2) Edelman suspended 4 games.
3) Gronk is slowing down a bit as a receiver and he was injured a lot this year.
4) no very good outside receiving threat.
5) Brady is happy to hand the ball off to a running back at goal line if that is the best option. Patriots had a good rookie running back score a bunch of TDs.
6) Brady spent too much time toungeing his children instead of Gisele

So Brady should decline next year since he is a year older but his numbers may go up if Patriots get a couple of very good outside threats or an outside threat and a better backup to Edelman and/or Gronk.

BB has such a great reputation that while Patriots may not win another Super Bowl the next 6-7 years especially if BB decides to replace Brady with a veteran QB or gets lucky drafting a replacement, I wouldn't be surprised if the Patriots make playoffs 4 or 5 of them even if another team in AFC East becomes team to beat in the division or even conference. (I am guessing Brady misses playoffs in his last year due to declining performance and/or injuries.) Once you are in the playoffs if you have a competent QB or above and a relatively healthy team, anything can happen in a given year. Odds are stacked in favor of better QBs/better teams but lesser QBs/lesser teams still have a chance.

1985 Patriots are evidence of lesser QBs. Went to Super Bowl with Tony Eason and beat Dan Marino in Miami along the way.

You left one out

[stevegroganfan]

Originally Posted by Hog's Gone Fishin

I'd bet anything Brady would have not been anywhere nearly as successful without BB. How would he have faired with the Browns or Jets???

If Dee Ford hadn't lined up in the neutral zone all the focus would have been how Brady blew their SB chance with a 3 int 0 TD performance and is this the end for him. One ****ing play completely changed the narrative.

**** Tom Brady and **** the Patriots!

Some of what you are saying is somewhat true but remember BB was an unsuccessful head coach with two different teams before Brady came along.

Brady's brilliance and willingness to put the team first may have had a coach like Rex Ryan for all of his stupidity in the HOF.

And it is true that Brady almost threw 3 or even 4 int's that game vs KC but he almost threw only 1 as well.

The big point is he did much better than nearly every NFL qb throwing into tight windows that game vs Chiefs. 7 for 14 which was much better than the other 3 qb's that played that weekend. Check out espn article if you don't believe me..... It was Brady's best tight window performance in 3 years according to the analytics people who track it.

And it is also true that while Hogan made a great one handed catch on one pass reception that he may have been slowed down slightly by Chiefs defense, it is also true that Patriots receivers dropped 5-6 very catchable balls in that game as well.

Pretty much Brady just had around 4 bad inaccurate throws that entire game and 2 of them Patriots receivers(Gronk and Edelman) could have caught and probably catch over 50% of the time. Those were the two tipped balls.

Most of Brady's other incompletions were him just throwing it away so Chiefs fast pass rush and it was pretty darn fast at times couldn't get to him. And their were the 5-6 drops.

Outside of being fooled by Chiefs linebacker in the end zone, Brady had a great game passing vs Chiefs.

Ask yourself the last team to put up 38 points against Chiefs at Arrowhead and how often that is done. It wasn't done since Sony Michel is Barry Sanders in his prime.

38 points and name Patriots main outside receiving threat. Could he make the Chiefs roster at wide receiver? Maybe but I doubt he plays much at all.

[stevegroganfan]

Originally Posted by Hog's Gone Fishin

You left one out

I laughed at that one since I do think it is very weird that Brady does that with his 11 year old son but he isn't the only heterosexual guy that does that which I find weird.

My only defense of it is Brady may be especially cognizant of showing love for that child in particular since it the child is from a former girlfriend and not Gisele.

From what I read, Brady's own father did that to him to a certain extent so he is passing down a weird to me family tradition.