Kyle Rudolph rumors: Should the Patriots pursue him?

With the Vikings and star tight end Kyle Rudolph potentially headed for a divorce, does it make sense for the Patriots to try and swoop him up?

One question will presumably hang over the New England Patriots for the rest of this offseason – and perhaps deep into the regular season as well – and that is: have they done enough to minimize the impact of losing Rob Gronkowski?

Gronkowski is, of course, a generational talent; the kind of once-in-a-lifetime, lightning-caught-in-a-bottle player that NFL general managers and head coaches dream of discovering in the draft… though it so rarely happens that way. It’s hard enough just to find serviceable full-season starters these days, let alone perennial Pro Bowlers that redefine their position and challenge for G.O.A.T. status after just nine years in the league.

All this is to say that Patriots legend Tedy Bruschi is spot-on with the below assessment:

Many New Englanders were waiting for Bill Belichick to nab Gronk’s replacement in this year’s draft, and when it didn’t happen, hundreds if not thousands of fans were left wondering why. Bruschi knows why, and here’s guessing Belichick knows why as well: guys like Gronk “don’t grow on trees.”

So rather than throwing darts at the wall and hoping to hit another bulls-eye like they did in the second round of the 2010 NFL Draft, the Patriots already seem committed to re-branding themselves offensively in a new, Gronk-less world.

As offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels recently shared, the tentative gameplan for 2019 is to go bigger and stronger at wide receiver – rather than shiftier and faster. New England figures to show more four-wide or even five-wide sets when they want to throw the ball.

And more than anything, they’re probably going to tilt even further towards the run game this season. The Patriots’ late-season success in 2018 pounding the rock with Sony Michel or Rex Burkhead lined up behind James Develin is potentially a sign of more things to come. Drafting Alabama bruiser Damien Harris in the third round of this year’s draft just solidified that thinking even further.

Will the Patriots completely abandon their predilection for the tight end on offense, then? Even besides Gronkowski, this is a team that has traditionally loved to employ one or two tight ends at a time during long stretches of games, to create mismatches, open up running lanes, confuse defenses, and offer even more options to Tom Brady in the red zone.

The answer is a decided “no.” While it may look like the team is just kicking the tires on 16-year veteran Benjamin Watson – or former draft bust Austin Seferian-Jenkins – both players weren’t given contracts that make them easily expendable. The hope is that one or both of them can find a path toward major playing time in the offense this season; it’s also not out of the question that either Matt LaCosse or Ryan Izzo could win a role as well by September.

So is there any merit then to speculation that connects New England to Minnesota tight end Kyle Rudolph?

Rudolph is entering his ninth season in the NFL, and over the course of that timespan, he’s made the Pro Bowl twice. When healthy, he’s usually reliable for about 500 yards and five touchdowns in a season. Those aren’t anywhere near Gronk’s healthy numbers, mind you, but in today’s world where tight ends have less opportunities than freakishly fast and/or strong and/or talented wide receivers, they’re certainly not ordinary either.

It makes sense that the Patriots have done their due diligence on Rudolph, and that they presumably have been in constant contact with the Vikings since the team selected Alabama’s Irv Smith Jr. with their second pick in last month’s draft.

As general manager Rick Spielman was quick to point out, Smith Jr. and Rudolph are not incompatible. Though they play the same position, they’re two very different players with different skill sets, and surely Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins would love to have both of them out there as weapons in 2019.

Adding Rudolph to this Patriots offense would definitively not make it any worse, and it’s hard to see how he wouldn’t make it significantly better.

But when considering the financial implications of such a deal, mixed in with the recent additions of Seferian-Jenkins and Watson, and most importantly taking into account McDaniels’ own admission that his vision for this year’s offense is different without Gronkowski, it just might not make sense for the Pats to add Rudolph at this time.