Bear Down Wildcats

1. Rob Gronkowski, TE, Patriots: With all due respect to Tony Gonzalez, Gronkowski is on pace to become the greatest tight end of all time. He's a playmaker and matchup nightmare as a pass-catcher and is also an outstanding blocker. The Pats go as Gronk goes, which arguably makes him the most important player on the field Feb. 1, in addition to being the best.

ghostwhitehorse wrote:http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs ... d-patriots

1. Rob Gronkowski, TE, Patriots: With all due respect to Tony Gonzalez, Gronkowski is on pace to become the greatest tight end of all time. He's a playmaker and matchup nightmare as a pass-catcher and is also an outstanding blocker. The Pats go as Gronk goes, which arguably makes him the most important player on the field Feb. 1, in addition to being the best.

ghostwhitehorse wrote:http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs ... d-patriots

1. Rob Gronkowski, TE, Patriots: With all due respect to Tony Gonzalez, Gronkowski is on pace to become the greatest tight end of all time. He's a playmaker and matchup nightmare as a pass-catcher and is also an outstanding blocker. The Pats go as Gronk goes, which arguably makes him the most important player on the field Feb. 1, in addition to being the best.

UofAlum05 wrote:

ghostwhitehorse wrote:http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs ... d-patriots

1. Rob Gronkowski, TE, Patriots: With all due respect to Tony Gonzalez, Gronkowski is on pace to become the greatest tight end of all time. He's a playmaker and matchup nightmare as a pass-catcher and is also an outstanding blocker. The Pats go as Gronk goes, which arguably makes him the most important player on the field Feb. 1, in addition to being the best.

If that comes to fruition then I should retire and become a footbal scout. I told my buddy sitting next to me in Arizona Stadium during Game 1 of Gronk's True Frosh season that he would end up being the greatest tight end in football history.

Seattle Seahawks starting nickel cornerback Jeremy Lane paused for a moment Thursday when asked what makes New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski so good, because Lane disagrees.

Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane said he doesn't think Patriots three-time All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski is that good.
"I actually don't think he's that good," Lane said. "He's OK. He does have a big body. But from what I've seen on tape, he doesn't like you putting your hands on him. So if we put our hands on him and shake him up a little bit, he won't catch that many balls."

RichardCranium wrote:I never heard of someone going out of their way to piss off Gronk, but Jeremy Lane seems to have a career death wish...

Jeremy Lane on Rob Gronkowski

I thought pros were supposed to understand that dissing the opposition almost always backfires.

JMarkJohns wrote:He was the life of the party, talking dance moves, sports science specials, and erotic novels based on Gronk spikes...

Rob Gronkowski will be taking his legendary off-the-field act to one of the most legendary game shows on TV.

Gronkowski's brother, Chris, said Tuesday in an interview with a Boston radio show that the family's four oldest brothers will be filming an episode of Family Feud this weekend along with their father.

Gronkowski will also been seen this summer in "Entourage" and will be featured in a cop role in another movie filmed recently -- "You Can't Have It" -- in which Gronkowski brother Dan will also appear as a cop.

the real dill wrote:Rob Gronkowski hasn't spent 'a dime' of his NFL earnings

"To this day, I still haven't touched one dime of my signing bonus or NFL contract money," he told TheMMQB.com. "I live off my marketing money and haven't blown it on any big-money expensive cars, expensive jewelry or tattoos and still wear my favorite pair of jeans from high school."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/rob ... id=DELLDHP

(Gronk) nearly retired after suffering a back injury while working out at the University of Arizona.

Not only had a ruptured disk made life in general difficult for Gronkowski, who said that his legs felt as though they weighed "500 pounds each" due to nerve damage that resulted from the ruptured disk, but his father had purchased an insurance policy that would have paid Gronkowski $4 million before he graduated college if he opted to retire from football for health reasons.

Doctors told Gronkowski that he could rehab in order to fix his back, or he could have surgery, which would eliminate his chances of playing his junior season for the Wildcats in 2009.

"Now I had to hope that by working crazy hard in rehab, I could fix my back in time to play that season," Gronkowski wrote. "There was another option, though: I could retire and collect the $4 million insurance, tax-free, at the age of 19 . . . but that would mean I couldn’t play football anymore. I did the calculations, and at four percent annual interest I could make $160,000 a year without touching the $4 million principal. But I didn’t want the easy money. I wanted to earn it, playing football. Maybe a lot of people would take the money and run, but I looked at it as quitting. I was happy playing football and didn’t want to give that up. So I decided to try physical therapy. It was a long shot, but I had to try."

It didn't work. In Arizona's second week of practice, Gronkowski tried to run a few routes and undid whatever progress he had made during his rehab. He later went under the knife, and was forced to watch his teammates play the season without him.

Chicat wrote:Haha, fumble recovery for his third TD?

In news that feels like something you already knew in your heart, Gordy Gronkowski, father of affable human sombrero Rob Gronkowski, said his son made his decision to attend the University of Arizona due to its renowned pool-party scene.

As Gronk Sr. put it in a recent interview with Vanity Fair's Bruce Weber, Rob knew right off the bat where he wanted to go when the scholarship offers came flooding in:

Rob had something like 65 scholarship offers, and I asked, “Where are you going? Syracuse? Ohio State?” He goes, “University of Arizona.” I asked, “Why there?” “Dad, if you ever went to a pool party at Arizona, you’d understand.”

That is vintage, barrel-aged, double cask Gronk. Can't drive a car yet but can tell you exactly where the bikinis are best.

Another interesting note from Weber's interview is Gordy's explanation of how all five of his sons became giant, athletic monsters.

It began when his eldest son, Gordie, began working out and quickly snowballed into a family-wide arms race between highly competitive brothers:

In eighth grade, I said to each of [my sons] in turn, “If you want to keep pursuing sports, you need to start training.” Gordie didn’t want to at first. But then he saw his younger brother Danny down in the basement getting bigger, stronger, and faster than him—then he wanted to train! It was like a virus after that—Chris hopped in, then Rob. After that, it was no problem pushing them to work harder anymore. They did it themselves. That was a great feeling, but it got very competitive in the house. I just created the environment, sat back, and watched it happen.

Now, I am not a father, but you only need to meet a few to know that this is every dad's dream.

Nothing is more fatherly than the paternal fever dream of wiping engine oil off your hands, sitting your kid down and dropping a solemn, one-sentence truth bomb that changes their life for the better forever.

That's the Great Dad Dream, and while it doesn't usually—ever—work out like that, it did for Gordy. He and his wife brought their own personal basketball team starting five into this world, and with a few gentle nudges, it became self-sufficient.

Now, if only the team didn't leave all the Solo cups by the pool, it'd be unstoppable.