Gronk Finally Re-Works His Contract and All is Right With the World
Well I’ll be damned. If this isn’t a positive development at the end of a long and pretty much depressing Patriots offseason, I don’t know what is. After spending months decoding Gronk’s Tweets wondering if #BandzMakeHerDance was just him quoting Juicy J lyrics about strippers or tipping his hand about a holdout.. Of reading his body language in practice. Of watching him skip OTAs. Of that nightmarish day in June when I was hearing he was about to be traded and trying to figure that out. Of waiting seemingly forever for a deal to get done … we’ve got this. What to me sounds like the absolute best outcome possible.
Like last year, Gronk wanted more money. No surprise in a league where guys Brandin Cooks and Sammy Watkins were set to make 60 percent more than him. And like last year, they gave him the chance to make more money. Good for him.
Like last year, he wanted more guaranteed money. Like last year, they’re not giving him more guaranteed money. Good for them. They don’t have to. They gave Gronk incentives after they won a Super Bowl without him. So it just makes good business sense to protect themselves, given that Gronk plays every play with 11 sets of crosshairs on his knees, ankles and head, since teams recognize the only way to stop him is take him out. (See the Barry Church hit in the AFC championship game that almost kept him out of the Super Bowl.)
So the solution was a compromise. He can get richer on a pay-for play deal. The Pats don’t flush a bunch of money down the toilet if he gets Gilloolied. Plus they don’t take a cap hit. Everybody wins. Except the people who pushed the narrative all year that he’s miserable and is ready to quit to go wrestle with Mojo Rawley or make action movies with The Rock. So do the people who think the Pats are cheap, because after paying Tom Brady more and extending Shaq Mason with one of the richest interior O-lineman deals in the league, Gronk will now be far and away the highest paid tight end in football, as it should be. I suppose the rest of the AFC doesn’t exactly come out ahead here, because I have to think they were pinning their hopes on a miserable, disgruntled Gronk. But he doesn’t look that way in the picture with the Rosenhauses. Ear-to-ear baby. But everyone on the Pats side of the equation look like winners in this.
Except Dwayne Allen. The life of a blocking tight end is not all it’s cracked up to be, I’m afraid.
Oh, and of course the good people of New England are huge winners in this. It’ll be touchdowns, spikes and 69 jokes all around. And our long, regional nightmare is over at last.