Report: 'A Good Chance' Rob Gronkowski Plays For Patriots In 2019
BOSTON (CBS) -- One of the biggest questions surrounding the Patriots this offseason is whether or not Rob Gronkowski will be back in 2019.
Gronkowski retirement talk has run rampant for much of the last year, and the tight end said after the team beat the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII that he would take a week or two to decide on his future.
The Super Bowl was a month ago, but that decision is still being made. We haven't really heard much from Gronkowski, who is busy vacationing with his girlfriend, Camille Kostek, in Cabo, doing what Gronk does best off the football field. So much so that quarterback Tom Brady made sure to tell Gronk to make sure he has enough energy left over to work out when they get back.
Brady's comment, which was made in response to a post on Kostek's Instagram account, has raised a few eyebrows around New England. Brady wanting to hit the practice field with him this offseason obviously means Gronkoski will be running routes for the Pats and catching passes from the quarterback in 2019, right?
Here's some more fuel to the "Gronk is coming back" fire. Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio said the longer it takes for Gronkowski to make his ultimate decision, the more likely he'll be playing for the Patriots in 2019.
"I was told on Super Bowl Sunday that if he emerges from the Super Bowl healthy and he knows Brady is all in for another year, there's a good chance he comes back, which is a surprise," Florio told WEEI's Mut & Callahan on Tuesday morning. "It is a major shift from how he was thinking a year ago. But, he got through the year largely unscathed. He's healthy. He's feeling good. Maybe he's thinking, and maybe Tom Brady has been working on him, maybe that Alex Guerrero book has got him something in his avocado ice cream that is making him love football a little bit more.
"It would be a surprise if he changes his mind and plays, but the longer this goes on -- when he said after the Super Bowl he would make his decision in a week or two, that told me he would announce the decision he already made in a week or two and he's retiring. Here we are a month later and he hasn't announced a decision yet, maybe he is thinking about it a little bit longer than he did last year," added Florio.
NFL free agency gets underway next week on March 13, with the NFL Draft at the end of April, so the Patriots are going to need a decision from Gronkowski sometime in the near future. But as the calendar slowly fades on the NFL offseason, it seems more and more likely that No. 87 will be back with the Patriots for at least another season.
