Former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski retired from the NFL for the second time this past offseason. The future Hall-of-Fame member has faced questions about whether he’ll return ever since.
Recently rejoining the FOX Sports broadcast team, Gronkowski appeared on FOX NFL Sunday prior to the opening slate of games in Week 6. It was then when the 33-year-old tight end was asked whether he would ever play again in the NFL. Only, it was done during a “Like it or Spike it” segment.
Gronk took roughly a minute, even cracking a joke about missing Terry Bradshaw too much to possibly step away from his FOX pregame crew again after working with them during his previous retirement in 2019 before giving the fans another Gronk spike.
What else did we expect?
His answer didn’t come without a great amount of consideration before Gronk agreed he would not come back, so it clearly still seems to be on the five-time Pro Bowler’s mind. Meanwhile, his old pal Tom Brady is still going strong at 45 years old with the Bucs and would surely welcome back the player he threw 90 regular season touchdown passes to.
Gronkowski caught a total of 107 touchdowns in his career, counting postseason play, 105 of them were from TB12.
He also mentioned during the broadcast that current New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll is the best position coach he’s ever had. Gronkowski went on to say, “He brought the best out of you. He had that niche to get you to enjoy the game and play to your full potential.”
Daboll was the tight ends coach for the Patriots from 2013 to 2016.
For now, Gronkowski appears content in his second retirement, but maybe someday, the allure of a chance at winning a fifth Super Bowl ring could change his mind.
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