In just nine years, Rob Gronkowski left his mark on both the New England Patriots and on NFL history by making some unforgettable moments happen.
It’s difficult to boil down a career as storied and impressive as Rob Gronkowski’s into a brief list of highlights. By the very definition of being arguably the most dominant offensive, non-quarterback weapon in the NFL for the past decade, Gronkowski has a sprawling laundry list of career accolades, memorable moments, and unbelievable plays that would make even the most cynical football observer gasp with wonder and awe.
Just as trying to condense The Beatles’ musical rolodex into a “greatest hits” compilation is an overwhelming and highly subjective undertaking, so too is any analysis with regards to Gronkowski’s own greatest hits collection as a player.
That said, there are certain key memories from Gronkowski’s career that deserve a little extra recognition. Through a combination of factors, these episodes stand out above the others as truly epitomizing the glory and grit of Gronk. Those factors include the stakes of the situation, the scenario in which the play unfolded, the difficulty of the task itself, and the end result of the action.
So without further ado, here’s our rendition of Rob Gronkowski’s Greatest Hits collection as a New England Patriot.
Gronk won’t go down against the ‘Skins in 2011
The best year of Gronkowski’s nine-season NFL career was undoubtedly his sophomore effort in 2011. It would go down as only the second time he’d make it through a full 16-game season without missing any time to injury (the first time being his rookie year); more importantly though, it remains the only season Gronk both played in and started all 16 games of the regular season.
Why is that so important? Because it serves as a helpful benchmark of just what Gronkowski was capable of doing without the impediment of injury. Essentially, the 2011 season was one long look at Gronk’s ceiling as a player – and boy, what a high ceiling it was!
Gronkowski had 90 catches for 1,327 yards (both career highs, of course). More impressively, he finished with a whopping 17 touchdowns on the year, a record for tight end touchdown receptions in a season that still stands today and could conceivably stand forever.
There were many eye-popping highlights in Gronk’s 2011 season, but for our money, the most memorable came in Week 14 on the road against the Washington Redskins. Gronkowski caught six passes for a then career-high 160 receiving yards, while also setting the single-season mark for touchdown receptions by a TE at the same time.
His standout day was capped by a remarkable play in the first quarter in which he made a diving catch on a low-thrown Tom Brady missile right around midfield. Gronkowski wisely recognized he hadn’t been touched by Washington defensive back DeJon Gomes, so he got up and started trucking forward with the ball. Gomes jumped on his back to try and bring him down, and even got significant help from fellow DB Reed Doughty, who also jumped on Gronk and tried to wrestle him down to the ground by his legs.
But Gronkowski simply would not go down. He dragged two grown men a few yards before shaking them both off and then breaking a third tackle en route to an additional 30 yards down the sideline, half-running, half-falling the whole way through.
This play is probably the single best representation of how hard it was to get Gronkowski tackled, especially when he had a head full of steam.
No. 87 comes up clutch in the AFC Championship Game
As much as Super Bowl 53 was all about Bill Belichick, Brian Flores, and the Patriots’ defense clamping down on the high-octane Los Angeles Rams offense in a record-setting performance, the game before that was all about Josh McDaniels, Tom Brady, Julian Edelman, and Rob Gronkowski coming up clutch repeatedly against the Kansas City Chiefs – and on the road in a hostile environment, no less.
Indeed, the AFC Championship Game this past season was a thrilling affair that pitted the two best teams in the conference against each other for the second time. And while New England ran circles around Kansas City in the first half, the second half was all Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
That is, until the fourth quarter and then overtime – which as we all know by now, is Tom Brady time at its finest.
It’s no surprise to see Brady and Edelman connecting when the team needs them to most, and three or four years ago, it wouldn’t raise any eyebrows to see Brady and Gronkowski doing the same. But with Gronkowski having his worst season in terms of touchdowns and overall statistical production in years, many fans and analysts wondered if the big man might have finally ran out of gas in 2018.
And then came the AFC Championship Game against K.C. With the Patriots down four points and with less than a minute to go in the game, Brady needed to convert a 3rd-and-5 from the Chiefs’ 30-yard line. He threw a perfectly-placed arcing ball to Gronkowski a little over 20 yards down the left sideline, and the veteran tight end hauled it in over safety Eric Berry’s head, bringing the ball all the way down to the four-yard line.
New England scored a touchdown a play later on a Rex Burkhead dive to take the lead, the Chiefs answered with a field goal, and the game headed to overtime.
The Patriots won the toss and got to handle the ball first, and it was all they needed to punch their ticket to the Super Bowl. But first, they had to convert back-to-back 3rd-and-10 plays. The first conversion was a 15-yard pass to Julian Edelman, and the second conversion was another 15-yard pass, this one to Gronkowski – who once again caught the ball in traffic over Berry and another Chiefs defensive back.
Without Gronk’s two clutch catches, last February’s Super Bowl very well could have been played between the Rams and the Chiefs, and the Patriots would have one less Lombardi Trophy to their name.
Gronk snags beautiful one-handed catch against Denver
The Patriots won their first Super Bowl in 10 years against the Seattle Seahawks following the 2014 NFL season. That victory was especially pivotal for the franchise, because it proved that Brady and Belichick weren’t done winning championships after their early 2000s dynasty. Of course, we all know now that the Pats would follow up their victory in Super Bowl XLIX with two more championships – in Super Bowl LI against the Atlanta Falcons and then in Super Bowl LIII against the Los Angeles Rams, establishing yet another dynasty in the process.
Along the way though to that fourth Lombardi, the Patriots had to get by Peyton Manning and the 6-1 Denver Broncos. The Patriots also had six wins at the time, though they also had two losses (the Broncos had already had their bye).
The first half of the game was all New England, with Brady and the Patriots leading Manning and the Broncos 27-7 at the half. In the third quarter, Denver scored 14 points to New England’s 10 to cut the deficit to 37-21.
But it was one singular play in the fourth quarter that essentially broke the spirit of the Broncos faithful that early November date in Gillette Stadium.
From Denver’s 21-yard line, Brady peeled back, pump-faked, and then rifled a laser about 25 yards down the center of the field and through four different Broncos defenders to a tightly-covered Rob Gronkowski. Somehow, against all probabilities and the laws of physics, Gronk pinpointed the ball with one hand and came down at the one-yard line.
It’s not just the fact that Gronkowski made the catch one-handed. It’s also the fact that he used his left hand, he had to outstretch his entire arm to retrieve the ball, and his left arm is the one that’s essentially part-machine with all the bracing, padding, and extra protection wrapped around it. Never mind that he also had to make the catch in the midst of four defenders, one of which was safety T.J. Ward, one of the toughest, hardest-hitting players in the NFL at the time.
Though the Patriots ended up winning the game easily by a 43-21 margin, Gronkowski’s catch stands out as either the best or the second-best catch he probably ever made (the other one we’re thinking about will come later in this article).
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.
Rob Gronkowski’s final NFL catch in Super Bowl 53
When considering Gronkowski’s greatest catch, for us, it’s a toss-up between his one-handed grab against Denver in 2014 and his final NFL catch against Los Angeles in last February’s Super Bowl. The former was probably more impressive from a sheer physics and degree of difficulty standpoint; the latter is more impressive because of the gravity of the situation, the significance of its emotional resonance, and the greater mileage on Gronk’s body when it happened.
In a low-scoring game that fittingly saw Gronkowski reel in six catches for 87 yards (the same number as his jersey), it was his last catch that will probably stand the test of time and come to define him as a player. With the game deadlocked at three points apiece and with less than eight minutes left to go in the fourth quarter, Brady and the Pats faced 2nd-and-3 from the Rams’ 31-yard line.
Rather than turning to Sony Michel, Rex Burkhead, or James White to try and seek an easy conversion on the ground, offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels had Brady somewhat-surprisingly decide to air it out. Tom Terrific lofted a graceful 29-yard pass down the left seam of the field to a streaking Gronkowski, who lunged forward to haul it in and secure it against his body, despite being surrounded by three different Rams defenders.
If it was indeed Gronk’s final catch in the NFL – and assuming he doesn’t change his mind about retirement and returns to the Patriots (one can hope and pray) – then it certainly was a thing of beauty.
The catch set up the Patriots for a Sony Michel two-yard touchdown plunge that would go down as the game’s only touchdown… but it would be more than enough. New England iced the game later with a Stephon Gilmore interception and a Stephen Gostkowski field goal to make it 13-3, and soon after, the Patriots tied the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl championships in the NFL with six.
Every New England fan wants Gronkowski back another year, there’s no doubt about it. But if indeed his heart is set on walking away from football to focus on other pursuits (WWE? Acting? Party cruise hosting?), then at the very least we should be thankful to him for giving us a Hall of Fame-caliber career.
In nine years, Gronk was the lynchpin for the Patriots’ dominance offensively, and the impact and importance of his numerous contributions as a player, personality, and humanitarian cannot be overlooked. For a man with as many memorable moments as Gronk, we’re grateful we had the chance to consider them all and compile this list of his “Greatest Hits” as a player in the NFL.