This past Sunday, the National Football League has lost – as some would argue – one of the most dominating tight ends in the league\u2019s history. Former Patriot tight end Robert Gronkowski announced his retirement from the NFL via Instagram. In his Instagram post Gronkowski talked about from the moment of being drafted in the second round of the 2010 NFL draft by the New England Patriots.
\nAlso, he thanked Head Coach Bill Belicheck and Patriot owner Robert Kraft.
\n\u201cIt was truly an incredible honor to play for such a great established organization and able to come in to continue and contribute to keep building success. To all my current and past teammates, thank you for making each team every year special to be a part of. I will truly miss you guys,\u201d the tight end wrote.
\nGronk ends his career with honorable mentions as being a five-time Pro Bowl, four-time All- pro and three-time Superbowl champion. Career stats for Gronk ends with 115 games played, 521 receptions, 7,861 yards, an average of 15.1 receiving yards per reception and 79 touchdowns.
\nHis departure from the NFL certainly came as a shock to Patriot nation. Late in the 2018 season Gronkowski was asked about retirement.
\n\u201cI haven\u2019t been thinking about that at all,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re on the last game. Going into Week 17, we\u2019ve got the Jets. That\u2019s all I\u2019m really worried about as of now.\u201d
\nThough certainly the tight end game stats took a dip. For example, the previous year in the first seven games Gronkowski had 34 receptions for 509 yards and five touchdowns and this past season he had only 29 receptions for 448 yards and one touchdown in seven games.
\nWhile some may see it as minimal, his on the field agility certainly looked as if he played hurt. Though Gronkowski has certainly racked up a lot of injuries over his career. These injuries include in a high ankle sprain, inguinal hip pull, forearm fracture, torn ACL and MCL, concussions, etc. Either way whether Gronkowski was being a funny character or dominating the field, he certainly made a name for himself in the league and many show him support in his retirement.
\nTeammates Julian Edelman posting on twitter with a picture of gronk with caption \u201cthe other goat\u201d and longtime friend and quarterback Tom Brady stated: \u201cYour fun-loving, inspiring and positive energy made an impact on everybody you came into contact with!\u201d Brady continued, \u201cNot just that, but for as great as a player you are, you are a better teammate and person. The NFL was a better place with you in it! But I have no doubt you will be a success in anything you do!!! Love you pal!\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This past Sunday, the National Football League has lost – as some would argue – one of the most dominating tight ends in the league\u2019s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[172],"class_list":["post-2125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"authors":[{"term_id":172,"user_id":17,"is_guest":0,"slug":"aaron-monreal","display_name":"Aaron Monreal","avatar_url":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/wp-content\/litespeed\/avatar\/2c66014a33fcdf11bc7da826a8a82d7d.jpg?ver=1778639391","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2127,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions\/2127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2125"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}