The oddest couple: Bill Belichick absolutely loves Rob Gronkowski
You’d never think that the goofiest personality in the NFL would ever mesh well with the coach who has made the monotone such a calling card that there are actual stories written chronicling the few times he smiles.
Rob Gronkowski is a dancing fool, and Bill Belichick is not. “Yo soy fiesta” and “We’re on to Cincinnati.” It makes no sense together. But Belichick clearly loves Gronkowski, and the normally taciturn New England Patriots coach went out of his way Wednesday to absolutely gush about the big lug.
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“He does a great job of trying to do his job, whatever it is he’s being asked to do and doing it well,” Belichick said, according to the Boston Herald’s Jeff Howe. “He’s been in a lot of different roles for us, but I can honestly say I’ve never seen him do anything but try his very best at those roles, whatever they happened to be. He’s not a one-dimensional player, and he sees football as a total team game and works hard at every aspect of it.”
Would Belichick enjoy Gronkowski and tolerate his off-field persona so much if he wasn’t an unstoppable force of nature at tight end? Probably not. But Gronkowski is the most dominant tight end in NFL history, and so Belichick isn’t going to stop whatever is working. In his book “it’s Good to Be Gronk,” Gronkowski relayed a conversation with Belichick when the coach asked him about “the craziness off the field.”
“I started laughing and told him, ‘The fun stuff makes me grind harder, coach,'” Gronkowski wrote in the book. “He shook his head as he walked off and said, ‘Whatever works for you.’”
It is working pretty well. Gronkowski has 58 touchdowns in 67 games, and with five more he’ll pass Shannon Sharpe on the all-time list. When that happens, Gronkowski will have more touchdowns than any modern-era tight end in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He holds the single-season records for receiving yards and touchdowns for a tight end, and Belichick added that Gronk is one of the two best blocking tight ends he has been around.
“He’s one of our best run blockers, too, period, at any position,” Belichick said, via the Herald. “I’d say for me, him and [Mark] Bavaro, they’re the two best that I’ve ever had on a consistent basis for all the different things they have to do.”
Seriously, Belichick decided this was the time to let everyone know how much he loves Gronkowski. He talked about how Gronkowski was an underrated leader. He mentioned how well he understands the game, because tight end is generally complicated and the Patriots ask him to do many, many different things in the offense. Being a devastating blocker and an unstoppable receiver are two very different roles, and Gronkowski can do both with no problem.
And Belichick’s praise makes sense, once you get past the differences in public images. What does Belichick stress? Do you job. Nobody has done his job at the tight end position in NFL history better than Gronkowski. Party on, Gronk.
“He is a great guy to have on the team,” Belichick said. “Forget about the talent and all that. The way he goes about his job, the way he works, trains in the weight room, his physical conditioning, his mental concentration, focus and desire to be well, to do well and improve are very, very good.”
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
