The New England Patriots weren’t Rob Gronkowski’s top destination when he was entering the draft in 2010. When he was coming out of college at Arizona, he wasn’t all that interested in making a big move.
“I loved being in the state of Arizona … I was praying that they (the Arizona Cardinals) would take me because I wanted to go there,” Gronkowski said on 98.7 FM Arizona Sports Station’s “Doug & Wolf,” as transcribed by ArizonaSports.com. “I felt like they needed a tight end and they brought me in for a little visit.”
That visit, however, didn’t go well.
“I could tell they had no interest in me,” Gronkowski said. “I could tell, the people that brought me in, they were just bringing me in to bring me in.”
He didn’t exactly wow the Patriots on his visit to New England, where he fell asleep on the floor while waiting for his interviewer. And yet Bill Belichick took a chance on the injury-prone tight end, even after what Belichick called a “bad visit.” It turned out pretty well for both of them.
