Rob Gronkowski, who opted to retire after the 2018 season due to injuries before returning to play with Tom Brady in Tampa Bay in 2020, said Monday that unlike his previous Super Bowl, when he struggled to walk during a month due to a thigh injury, feeling he could return to the field right now.
“I feel like I could play another season right now, if I started,” Gronkowski said. “I feel really good … I feel light. I feel flexible. I feel like I can go out and play football and go out and not have pain … run routes and do what I have to do on the field. So I definitely feel ready to play, to play another full season this year and finish it in a year at a time like this ”.
Gronkowski, who will turn 32 in May, reached his first full 16-game season since 2011 and played four postseason games. After a bit of a slow start, he returned to football form and found his role in Bruce Arians ’offense toward the middle of the season, and reached his peak in the postseason, coinciding with his personal best of two touchdowns in the Super Bowl LV.
“This year, just playing all 20 games, all 16 games of the regular season, not losing a practice, not losing a game, not losing anything in the postseason, it was a great feeling,” Gronkowski said.
“It was something I also wanted to prove to myself, what I could do, prove to myself that the things I’ve learned and taken and changed: that I can play a full season I can also play a postseason complete at a high level. Overall it’s great to accomplish that mission and now I feel like I can do it again. “
It was also important for Gronkowski to fulfill his contract, which he signed for six years and $ 54 million in 2012, which was added to his rookie deal. That made him a Patriot until 2019, which is why the Bucs had to send a fourth-round draft pick for their rights and a seventh-round pick in 2020.
Gronkowski said he will play one-year contracts in the future, assessing his body and overall health at the end of each season before deciding if he wants to continue. Would he have continued to play so many injuries if he hadn’t been forced to end his deal with the Patriots?
“This is a difficult issue, since I signed it at 22, and when you sign something and you’re 22, you think you might like to run down a wall no matter the rest of your life,” Gronkowski said. “You don’t really understand the obstacles you will face when you are so young.
“But I would say the contract didn’t play a role either. There was no guaranteed money or anything like that, so I didn’t have to play. I’d just say the contract didn’t.” I really have nothing to do with it, I just wanted to play football. “
Then he worked hard and played a lot. As inside, he loved to party. And while he still has it, as seen in viral videos of him and teammates shirtless and drinking at the bow of a boat at the Bucs Super Bowl boat parade, he is now in a very minor.
“Back in the day, when I was 20, I would lengthen the [Super Bowl] celebration probably for a month or two, “Gronkowski said.” I wouldn’t even know what’s going on in the world. But live and learn. I’m in my thirties now, so [parade] it was enough for me “.