Gronk and His 20 Concussions Join Brady on the Bucs
Jim Morrison and his bandmates with The Doors made the inevitable point in Five to One:
No one here gets out alive.
It seemed like Morrison lived on the edge -- and chronicled it in his songs -- to his listeners didn't have to. Some public figures are just like that, allowing others to live vicariously through their exploits.
The good ones, anyway.
Morrison -- like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Brian Jones -- didn't make it past 27.
Lotsa major NFL stars have, but there's a subset whose career after-effects lasted longer than their careers did.
So when Rob Gronkowski says he's returning to the NFL and worked out a deal so he could team up with Tom Brady at Tampa Bay, it's definitely time for mixed emotions:
- Good news: The Gronk's back!
- Bad news: Dude claims he's had 20 concussions, and he sounds serious.
.@RobGronkowski told CBSN's @reenaninan that he'd let his son play football ––only after educating him about what he went through in the game.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 12, 2019
He said he had about "nine surgeries, probably had 20 concussions" playing football. https://t.co/CYw25maOgo pic.twitter.com/dltWn6Y4k2
Gronk's fixed?
Dude, cats and dogs get fixed so they don't have kittens and puppies.
The Six Million Dollar Man -- in 1970s money -- got fixed, but that was make-believe.
The Shield's own medical advisors may hem and haw about the three-ding standard, but odds are even they would swallow hard at the thought of one dude claiming 20.
Over-the-top acts aside, though, Gronk's got official documents that he's a grown adult and he's in the land of free will ...
There he is, then, the latest member of Bruce's Boys. Yes, new Buc on the block Tom Brady wanted him there, and he didn't have to do much convincing ...
Gronk reuniting with Brady — wherever Brady ended — always felt like a real scenario behind the scenes. I can’t understate the appreciation, on and off the field, they have for each other. Gronk was done with the Patriots… but he never wanted to be done catching TDs from Brady.
— Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) April 21, 2020
From @ESPNStatsInfo: The 78 TD passes from Brady to Gronk are most in the NFL from 2010-18 and twice as many as Brady has thrown anyone else.
— Ed Werder (@WerderEdESPN) April 21, 2020
Most Rec TD from Tom Brady
Rob Gronkowski 78
Randy Moss 39
Julian Edelman 36
Wes Welker 34
... but Tampa Bay was probably being generous giving up a fourth-round pick for one of the league's greatest tight ends and a seventh-rounder.
Gronk passed their physical, but those tests didn't include Demario Davis or Shaq Thompson.
Of the 29 games he missed, 13 of them came in his last three seasons, and maybe he was once a paydirt magnet, dude only found the house 14 times in those three campaigns.
Recession or no, if the Covid-19 outbreak lapses enough for the NFL to have a season, Bucs fans have expressed their excitement at this news by pounding it at the box office. In that respect, reuniting Brady and Gronk is already a winning proposition.
All Gronk's gotta do -- if the change in scenery recharges his production -- is stay in one piece.
For his sake as well as theirs.