Twitter Has Mini-Freakout Over Rob Gronkowski's Confusing 'Pay Cut' Tweet
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- In one of the biggest financial no-brainers in New England Patriots history, the team picked up the $6 million option on All-World tight end Rob Gronkowski, making him signed through 2019. His cap hit over the next two seasons will be about $6.6 million and $7 million, respectively, and his base salary will never exceed $9 million.
As one of the most valuable contracts in football, Gronk's option has helped out the Patriots as far as adding to the roster to make one last run (or maybe more) with Tom Brady at quarterback. With Brady also signed through 2019 with his own extension, the Patriots are preparing themselves for four more years of both players terrorizing NFL defenses (as long as they get Brady some protection).
Gronk does not play pro football for the money, and he wanted to tweet about that to let his fans know. It just came out wrong.
If ya think about it that Option pick up basically equals pay cut the next 4 seasons...???????????????????????? I don't work hard for those reasons. Haha ????????????
— Rob Gronkowski (@RobGronkowski) March 8, 2016
Gronkowski may be on his way to becoming the best tight end in NFL history and he's clearly a football savant, but you would never mistake him for Hemingway. His grammar isn't perfect, and unfortunately, this tweet reads as if Gronk doesn't play for pay cuts. I'm about 99.957393% sure he meant the complete opposite.
The tweet caused some concern about whether Gronk was happy about the team picking up the option.
Obviously, Michael Felger and the Boston Globe's Ben Volin, who writes some fine football columns but has been known to poke the bear at times, took it as a passive-aggressive jab at the Patriots letting them know he deserves to be paid a lot more than he is. It's true, Gronkowski is "criminally underpaid" for his contract, but when has he ever struck you as someone who loves to play football for any reason other than to play football?
He already makes money from other ventures like the Gronk Party Cruise. He's said publicly that he doesn't even spend any of his football money and lives off of endorsements. He's one of the most marketable players in the league and could even continue to be marketable after football, so it's not like he needs to max out his deal.
Of course Gronk knows he's underpaid. You could argue that he deserves to be one of the highest-paid players in the entire league. He doesn't care. He just wants to ball. He just wants to win.
Not to mention, if there was even a smidgen of negative energy emanating from Gronk's fingers when he typed out that tweet, the Patriots would have made him delete it already. Thankfully, some less cynical media folk knew what Gronk meant.
Poor Gronk, can't even tweet that he doesn't care about money without confusing everyone
— feitelberg (@FeitsBarstool) March 8, 2016
Gronk humor. Team, as expected, picked up $6 million option to activate second part of contract through 2019. https://t.co/kJENOwS3Uo
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) March 8, 2016
Others just aren't bothering to touch this one.
Yeah, but it's dangerous to read into tweets. https://t.co/58UULXOvWe
— Jeff Howe (@jeffphowe) March 8, 2016
Read into Gronk's tweet however you want. But the fact remains that the tweet is still live more than 14 hours after it was posted (as of 9:50 a.m. Tuesday morning). The Patriots and PR chief Stacey James are clearly OK with it. And Gronk is clearly OK with taking a little less money than he's worth if it means the Patriots can sign other key players long-term (like pretty much everyone on defense) and adding pieces to the roster to make the team better for the next few years.
Just don't expect his Twitter grammar to get any better.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.