Rob Gronkowski’s greatest hits, catches, and plays

Gronk throws Colts safety Sergio Brown out of the club

No Gronkowski Greatest Hits collection is complete without one of the most simultaneously funny and astounding highlights of his career. Just two weeks after making the ridiculous one-handed grab against the Broncos in Week 9 of 2014, Gronkowski made headlines again by absolutely eviscerating Indianapolis safety Sergio Brown in a Sunday Night Football game against the Colts.

Patriots fans may remember this as the “Jonas Gray game,” in which the unheralded third-string running back had 199 yards and four touchdowns against the porous Colts’ run defense. Gray would later fade to obscurity after reportedly sleeping past his alarm one morning and being late to a practice, because that’s how it is with Bill Belichick and the Patriot Way.

The game was also memorable though for all the theatrics between Rob Gronkowski and former teammate Sergio Brown. Gronk had four catches for 71 yards and a touchdown, and all game long, he found himself doing battle with Brown along the sidelines. After the Colts safety tried to strip him of the ball on one reception, Gronk upped the ante by charging into Brown late in the fourth quarter.

Ostensibly, Gronkowski was supposed to be blocking for Gray so the running back could power his way into the end zone for a touchdown, which he did. But well after Gray had punched his way in, Gronkowski kept driving Brown back further and further, until the two passed by a side judge and over a pylon. Gronk emphatically put an exclamation point on the excessively-long and drawn-out block by hurling Brown to the ground, which drew a personal foul penalty on the resulting kickoff.

Of course, by that point the game was already well in hand for the Patriots. Even Belichick, ever the disciplinarian, didn’t see fit to lash into Gronkowski, who earned a number of high-fives and fist bumps as he made his way back to the bench down the New England sideline.

After the game, Gronk was asked about the play in question, and he delivered one of the most memorable sound bites of his career.

“He was yappin’ at me the whole time… so I took him and threw him out of the club,” he told reporters.

There you have it: textbook Gronk.