Rob Gronkowski said that “right now” he has no desire to rejoin the New England Patriots for the 2019 football season. He’s happy in retirement “right now,” he said during an appearance on the “Rich Eisen Show” on Wednesday.
It felt a little like when Arizona Cardinals general manager Steve Keim said that Josh Rosen was the team’s quarterback “right now.” Keim then drafted Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray at No. 1 overall in the 2019 NFL Draft and traded Rosen (and ghosted him).
Could we see a similar reversal from Gronk? He was asked whether he misses football.
“There’s definitely going to be times when you miss it and everything,” Gronkowski said. “I would always say that it’s still the offseason right now. I mean I can’t really say how I’m going to feel about it when the games start rolling around and everything. You know, I just felt like it was time. I feel really good right now and it was just definitely something I felt like it was the right time and the right thing to do. To have that load off your back, I mean I’ve been playing football for 15 years straight in a row of that grind. Just relaxing right now feels good.”
One of the final elements of Eisen’s interview with Gronk included a role-play. Eisen pretended he was Tom Brady. Gronk pretended he was, well, Gronk. And they pretended it was November 2019, with Brady trying to convince Gronk to come back to football.
“Thank you, I love you, I miss you, but I’m just relaxin’, Tommy,” Gronkowski said, laughing through the whole role-play exercise.
There’s no chance?
“Call me when you get to the playoffs,” Gronk said.
It wouldn’t be an interview with Gronk if he didn’t assure us that he’s happy in retirement before casting doubt on the fact that he’ll stay retired. That’s in part because he loves trolling everyone.
“I mess with people,” Gronkowski said in May 2. “I say ‘fake retired’ to half the people. I say I’m coming back next week. But yes, I’m actually retired. But I like to mess around, sometimes tell people I’m really not.”
The saga continues.
