Brett Favre says Aaron Rodgers won’t finish career in Green Bay

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May 2, 2020

Aaron Rodgers shaking hands with Brett Favre

Brett Favre said he thinks Aaron Rodgers will follow the same career path that he did and finish his career elsewhere after the Green Bay Packers selected quarterback Jordan Love in the first round of the NFL draft last week.

“I think he’ll play somewhere else,” Favre said Wednesday on the Rich Eisen Show on NBC Sports Network, cutting off Eisen before he could finish the question.

Rodgers won’t end his career with the Packers?

Brett Favre talks about future of Aaron Rodgers

“My gut tells me no,” Favre said. “I don’t know this for certain, but I guarantee you, it’s got the wheels turning in Aaron’s mind. If that’s the case, then that means there’s a chip on his shoulder toward the organization that otherwise was not there. All he needs is a reason other than this reason to expedite that.”

Rodgers, 36, has four years remaining on his $134 million contract extension signed in 2018. For salary-cap purposes, he’s virtually untradable until after the 2021 season.

Favre said he has talked with Rodgers since the Packers traded up four spots to pick Love at No. 26 on Thursday.

“I’m not going to talk about all that we talked about, but he was … let’s just say surprised that they went in that direction,” Favre said.

Rodgers has not spoken publicly since the draft, but Love told ESPN’s Maria Taylor that he has spoken with Rodgers. A source told ESPN that Rodgers initiated the call.

Rodgers and Favre’s Friendship

Favre and Rodgers, who have become friends since Favre’s career ended, got off to a rocky start after the Packers picked Rodgers in the first round of the 2005 draft. Rodgers served as backup QB for three seasons before Favre left Green Bay to finish his career with the New York Jets and the Minnesota Vikings.

“I’m not surprised that he reached out to Jordan, being in a similar situation himself 15 years ago,” Favre said. “And we had a great relationship in spite of — I wouldn’t say it took a turn for the worst when I left. But he was basically caught up in the middle of a hornet’s nest, if you will. I don’t foresee that happening here. I think Aaron will do whatever. It’s not his job to mentor Jordan Love.

“This discussion went on when I left Green Bay. It’s not the head guy’s job to mentor the next guy. That guy’s ultimately there to take your spot. Now, if Jordan were to ask, ‘Can I watch extra film with you?’ I would be shocked if Aaron said no. I think he would go over and beyond to help, but he’s not going to go out of his way, and I can’t blame him.”

The Packers have faced criticism not only for taking a quarterback when Rodgers has four years left on his contract but also for not doing more to upgrade the offense around their QB. In a draft in which a record 36 receivers were taken, the Packers took none. This comes after Green bay came within a game of the Super Bowl last season under first-year coach Matt LaFleur.

Green Bay needs Aaron Rodgers

“Green Bay’s not going anywhere without Aaron Rodgers in the next few years,” Favre said. “If he plays like we expect him to play, they’ve got a shot with or without a first-round receiver. So I would do all I could to not burn that bridge, and I don’t think they did that. I think they burned a bridge that’s going to be hard to overcome. At some point, I think it will rear its ugly head.”

Favre said the Packers should be one of the teams “playing for now.”

“They don’t draft any weapons — not just in the first round but any weapons that can help immediately, to my knowledge. And that just sends a disrespectful message to Aaron Rodgers,” Favre said. “He has every right to be disappointed if he is.”

This article was first published by ESPN.

Bill Belichick’s Dog at the NFL Draft

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May 1, 2020

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How did Bill Belichick’s dog, Nike, become one of the unexpected stars of the NFL draft?

By doing what any good dog should: patiently waiting for his treats.

Belichick’s girlfriend, Linda Holliday, explained how it unfolded on The Adam Schefter Podcast.

“Nantucket’s got very strict rules about who is coming to the island, so I worked with the Patriots’ IT people and I said, ‘Teach me, I’ll do lighting. I’ll do IT. I’ll do it all,'” she said.

Bill Belichick’s dog Nike

“So I’m doing lighting, and next thing I know, Bill had a couple of treats that were left over near his laptop and he stepped away from the table. And all of a sudden, he looks and goes, ‘Look at the table.’ There’s Nike just sitting there waiting patiently, and he knew his treats were there. So that’s what prompted him getting up to the table, and he was just waiting patiently for the word to take his treats.”

Holliday told Schefter that she had created an Instagram account for Nike, a 2-year-old Alaskan Klee Kai. The account quickly grew in popularity during the draft. It includes pictures of the Patriots’ virtual draft room and Nike’s picture, initially had 1,000 followers and now has more than 16,000.

“I really had no clue until my phone started blowing up and @TheSwooshDog started gaining followers,” Holliday said.

As it turns out, Nike had a challenging rookie season but has shown notable signs of improvement this year.

Nike has improved his behavior

“Nike has been through a lot of rigorous training the first year. Klee Kais are like huskies; I’m the daughter of a veterinarian, so I thought I could train any dog around,” Holliday said. “And Nike won. He won that battle that first year, was uncontrollable, unmanageable, wouldn’t behave and even nipped people.

“He did things the way Nike wanted to do things,” she added. “I had a lot of comments on how well-behaved Nike was, and Nike was during his segment of the draft. But that came with an excessive amount of training that both Bill and I still do to this day, working with him.”

This article was first published by ESPN.

Fastest Players in the NFL

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April 30, 2020

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Matt Breida running back for the San Francisco 49ers is the fastest player in the NFL

We’ve all heard it before. Speed kills. You can’t teach speed. Speed is essential for certain athletes to have, especially specific positions in the game of football. So, who are the fastest players in the NFL?

Fastest Players in the NFL

I want to start out by saying we are talking about straight end sprinting speed here. We are not considering agility, change of direction, cutting ability, anything like that. Here are the top speeds reached by current NFL players:

Matt Breida, running back for the 49ers surprisingly edged out Tyreek Hill of the Chiefs for the title of fastest NFL player. His top speed of 22.3 mph came on an 83-yard touchdown run against the Browns in week 5 of the 2019 NFL season.

The interesting part about this list is that all five players are serious contributors to their teams. The top two players, Breida and Hill, were playing each other in Superbowl 55.

RBs and WRs

All five of the top five speedsters in the league are either running backs or wide receivers. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because being fast is one of the most important aspects of these two positions.

Christian McCaffrey, running back for the Panthers, recently changed up his workout routine to focus more on improving speed. This is coming in a league that is getting bigger and bigger and he opted to choose for speed over size and strength.

The five guys on this list have an average age of 25.6 years old, with only one being older than 26. The younger, newer players are clearly taking over the NFL in terms of speed.

If you extend the list to the sixth, it is yet another running back – Saquon Barkley of the New York Giants. Just like McCaffrey, Barkley focuses on speed and power workouts to improve his explosiveness and speed.

Kansas City breeds speed

Tyreek Hill isn’t the only one on his team that can run. Mecole Hardman reached a top speed of 21.87 mph, good enough for 7^th on the year. Meanwhile, Sammy Watkins hit 21.33 mph which ranked as the 17^th fastest player last year.

Of course, Patrick Mahomes is one of the best quarterbacks in the league but with three of the top twenty fastest players in the NFL on your offense, it’s no wonder that the Chiefs have had success.

The offense is electric. No one can seem to stay with these receivers and running backs. Just take the game changing play in the Superbowl as an example. Tyreek Hill outran the entire 49ers secondary to find a seam where Mahomes hit him in open space.

That sparked a comeback and a championship for the Chiefs in 2019 and it seems that they are one of the favorites to win again next season.

Jim Harbaugh surprises Students in Ohio

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April 29, 2020

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Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh surprised students at an Ohio School

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh made a surprise virtual appearance to a group of schoolchildren in … Ohio.

Harbaugh appeared on the morning announcements at St. Aloysius Catholic School in Bowling Green, Ohio, on Monday morning. Both Jim and John Harbaugh attended the school in the 1970s when their father, Jack, was an assistant coach at Bowling Green.

Jim Harbaugh surprises Ohio school students

Tom Konecny, who has three children at the school, emailed Jack Harbaugh to see whether Jim Harbaugh could tape a message to lift up the students’ spirits as they work from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Konecny himself has ties to Bowling Green and Michigan, so he was hoping that would help grant his request.

Jim Harbaugh did the morning announcements for his old elementary school St. Aloysius in Bowling Green today.

It's everything you'd hope it would be! Morning prayer. Pledge of Allegiance. It's all in here. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/hxLpVyJuJH

— Jordan Strack (@JordanStrack) April 27, 2020

Jack Harbaugh got the email and called Konecny with the good news: Jim Harbaugh would tape the message. He told Konecny he would try to get John, coach of the Baltimore Ravens, to tape a message after the NFL draft.

So on a video posted to Facebook on Monday morning, St. Aloysius principal Andrea Puhl opened the morning announcements to say she would not lead them but introduce a surprise guest instead.

Harbaugh lifts spirits

“Good morning, St. Aloysius, this is coach Jim Harbaugh wishing you a great day on this beautiful April 27!” he started. Not surprisingly, Harbaugh made sure to get in his two trademark phrases.

“Who could possibly have it better than us?” he said. “The answer to that is nobody. So do that again with me. Who’s got it better than us? Nobody!”

Harbaugh then offered a piece of advice, “Attack this day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.”

Harbaugh also led students in daily prayer with his daughter, Addie, and the pledge of allegiance before signing off with “Go Blue!”

Bowling Green is right in the heart of the Michigan-Ohio State divide. But as one parent wrote in response to the message, “SO AWESOME! What a great guy!!! Still cheering for the bucks but you have forever fans in our home coach.”

“Both [Jack] and Coach Jim were so down-to-earth and friendly,” Konecny said in an email message. “The feedback has been *so* incredibly positive, many surprised families.”

This article was first published by ESPN.com.

Home Field Advantage in the NFL

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April 28, 2020

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Pittsburgh Steelers Fans at Heinz Field giving their team an NFL home field advantage

If you have ever been to a sporting event live in person you know it can be a memorable experience. Watching incredible athletes play in front of tens of thousands of people is exhilarating.

Obviously the excitement of being a fan in the big crowd at a game is real. But is there any affect for the teams on the field? We looked at the numbers to determine if home field advantage in the NFL is legitimate.

Is playing at home an advantage in Sports?

According to a study by fivethirtyeight, home field advantage does exist, especially in the NFL. The study took every game played in all four major sports since 2000 to prove whether or not the claim could be supported.

Both the NFL and NBA have significant home field advantages throughout the regular season and the playoffs. However, as you can see, it didn’t have much of an impact in the NHL and MLB. There could be many factors that make it more important in the NFL like the size of the venue, number of fans in attendance or even the absence of travel.

NFL Home Field Advantage

As shown in the table above, home teams in the NFL win 57% of regular season games but 65% of playoff games. Now, the jump in win percentage could be because the home team in the playoffs is always a higher seed, meaning they earned their spot with a better record, and therefore should be a better team.

This can be backed up by the round by round analysis of home field advantage.

Over the last ten years of playoff football, the home team has won 64% of the games, which lines up with the study from earlier.

But look at these crazy numbers:

Playoff Round	Home Wins	Away Wins
Wild Card	20	20
Divisional	30	10
Championship	14	6

Home Field Advantage by Playoff Round

The Wild Card games split 50-50 for home and away teams. The divisional round saw the home team win 30 out of 40 games (75%) and the championship round had the home team winning 14 out of 20 possible opportunities (60%).

What this says is that having a home game in the wild card round doesn’t mean much at all. But having a bye week, and thus a home game in round two, is a massive advantage. This is why having a higher seed in the NFL playoffs is crucial.

As for the decrease in win percentage from 75% to 60% from the divisional round to the championship round, it can probably account to neither team in the matchup having a bye week advantage like they could’ve had in the divisional round against a team that had just played the week prior.

Just look at the Peyton Manning vs Tom Brady rivalry, two of the best to ever suit up. The home team won 12 of 17 meetings, including the final seven games of Manning’s career. What about the playoff games between the two you might wonder? The quarterback that was at home never lost in the playoffs (5-0).

Green Bay Drafts Jordan Love

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April 27, 2020

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Jordan Love drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft

The Green Bay Packers now have their current franchise quarterback and a potential future one, too.

Most would consider such an updated state worthy of positive marks following a draft, even if Packers fans focused on winning now are displeased. Those irritated supporters might not have had a choice anyway. NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported the Packers were “adamant” about trading up for Utah State quarterback Jordan Love, arranging for multiple deals to trade up, including one deal in which the Packers would have moved up to No. 27 in a trade with Seattle.

Packers trade up for Jordan Love

The Packers didn’t end up doing so because they swung a swap with Miami to move up to No. 26, where they selected Love and surprised much of the football world. After all, Green Bay has 36-year-old signal-caller Aaron Rodgers, who is undoubtedly still in his prime.

In a draft in which the Packers could have added a weapon for Rodgers, they instead moved up to spend their highest pick on Rodgers’ eventual successor.

Green Bay preparing for future

No other team was all that interested in moving up to take Love, according to Rapoport. With Rodgers still very capable of winning but also not exactly 25 years old, it would make sense if the quarterback became disgruntled by such a forward-looking decision. Then again, Rodgers came into the league in a similar fashion as the 24th pick in the 2005 draft and the heir apparent to Brett Favre.

It’s been widely publicized how Favre wasn’t exactly keen on helping Rodgers take his job. Some have expected Rodgers to react similarly, but according to Rapoport, Rodgers and Love have connected since the draft. And this won’t be a succession plan that is set into motion in 2020 or 2021; Packers coach Matt LaFleur told NFL Network’s Michael Silver the organization still has “incredible confidence” in Rodgers, who they expect to remain in Green Bay long term.

Development was the plan for the Packers on Day 1 of the 2020 draft. We will have to wait a while to see if they were wise in that decision.

This article was first published by NFL.com.

NFL Offense vs Defense – Inside the Numbers

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April 25, 2020

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View of offense vs defense line of scrimmage during the NFL Pro Bowl.

There are two main phases to the game of football – offense and defense. Sorry, special team fans. Although special teams can play a big part of the outcome in a game, offense and defense always does. But which one is more important to have on an NFL team in the offense vs defense debate?

Legendary Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant once said, “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships.” Bryant did win six national championships embracing that philosophy in college football but that was also during the 1960s and 70s.

The game was different back then. More grit, less fluff. Today’s game is much more offensively driven than it was fifty years ago.

What wins in the NFL – offense or defense?

Let’s play GM for a second, shall we? If you are building a team to play in the NFL what do you try and focus on? A high-octane offense or a stout defense? I know most would answer with both a powerful offense and a shutdown defense but that’s not very realistic. Most teams have to choose to lean one way or the other or take a more balanced approach.

We focused on the playoff results over the last ten years to stay relevant to the changing style of the game and didn’t factor in regular season results because the playoffs are what really matters when it comes down to winning.

Obviously, clutch players and home-field advantage, among other things can also play a factor. Having Peyton Manning or Tom Brady on your team boosts your odds but let’s keep the argument strictly team offense vs team defense.

NFL Playoffs – Offense vs Defense

In all 110 NFL playoff games since the 2010 season, the team with the higher ranked offense has come out victorious 56% of the time. Independently, the team with the higher ranked defense has won 55% of the time. This gives a slight edge to your team if they are ranked higher on either side of the ball.

Except these numbers have been favoring offensively driven teams the last few years:

	2010-2019	2013-2019	2016-2019
Higher Ranked Offense Win Percentage	56%	61%	66%
Higher Ranked Defense Win Percentage	55%	53%	48%

But if one team has the edge in offense and the opponent has an advantage on defense, or vice versa (which happens a whopping 61% of the time), it kind of renders those numbers useless.

How about combining those two scenarios for the same team? Teams that have both a higher ranked offense and defense compared to its opponent win 66% of the time. In the NFL playoffs, that is a crazy good statistical edge.

Top offenses vs great defenses

Next, let’s compare all the playoff matchups between teams with great offenses vs teams with great defenses to further pinpoint which aspect is more valuable to have as a team strength.

Since this is strictly a case study of offense vs defense, we filtered out games that featured two great offenses, two great defenses, or neither of both. Having a great unit on both sides of the ball is obviously preferred but that advantage will not be touched upon in this article.

Since 2010, there have been 22 games that featured a top ten offense facing a top ten defense. The results? 11 wins for the offense. 11 wins for the defense. Dead even. But what if we refine this to just matchups of a top five NFL offense vs top five defense?

This gets us down to 8 specific games, where the top 5 defense has won 6 of them.

Below is a list of all these matchups:

Year	Playoff Round	Top 5 Offense	Top 5 Defense	Result
2010	Wild Card	Indianapolis Colts	New York Jets	NYJ 17 - IND 16
2011	Divisional	New Orleans Saints	San Francisco 49ers	SF 36 - NO 32
2011	NFC Championship	New York Giants	San Francisco 49ers	NYG 20 - SF 17 (OT)
2012	Wild Card	Washington Redskins	Seattle Seahawks	SEA 24 - WSH 14
2013	Wild Card	Green Bay Packers	San Francisco 49ers	SF 23 - GB 20
2013	Superbowl	Denver Broncos	Seattle Seahawks	SEA 43 - DEN 8
2016	Wild Card	Oakland Raiders	Houston Texans	HOU 27 - OAK 14
2017	Divisional	Atlanta Falcons	Seattle Seahawks	ATL 36 - SEA 20

Maybe this proves that when the best of the best on each side of the ball matchup the defense usually prevails. Having one of the best quarterbacks and offenses in the league is great but it appears they don’t fair too well against elite defenses.

Does Defense Win Championships?

Here are the last ten Superbowl winners along with their offensive and defensive rankings:

Year	Superbowl Champion	Offense Rank	Defense Rank
2010	Green Bay Packers	9	5
2011	New York Giants	9	27
2012	Baltimore Ravens	16	17
2013	Seattle Seahawks	18	1
2014	New England Patriots	10	13
2015	Denver Broncos	16	1
2016	New England Patriots	4	8
2017	Philadelphia Eagles	7	4
2018	New England Patriots	5	21
2019	Kansas City Chiefs	6	17

The average Superbowl champion has an average rank of 10^th for offense and 11^th for defense. That doesn’t really prove much other than the fact that you have to have at least one of the categories close to the top ten to have a shot at a title.

One thing to note is that seven of the ten past champions had an offense ranked in the top ten. Well, what about the other three teams, you might ask. Two of them had the two best defenses of the decade (2013 Seahawks, 2015 Broncos) which propelled them to a title.

The last one? The 2012 Baltimore Ravens who appear as the lone outlier in the data. The Ravens still ranked 16^th in overall offense.

Over the course of the previous ten NFL seasons, it seems the Superbowl Champions have followed a certain trend. Have a lot of fire power on offense or have a truly elite defense.

So, yeah good defenses have won championships in recent years but teams that have been more focused on the defensive side of the ball haven’t performed nearly as well as teams that rely on their offense.

Focus on Offense

Although the elite defenses usually stifle the best offenses, those matchups don’t come up very often (8 occurrences in 110 playoff games). They maybe only happen once or twice a year. This means the defensively minded teams will need to find other ways to win.

This is when they turn to their less than stellar offense to pick up the slack, which does not make for a sustainable model during a long playoff run against the best NFL teams.

The league is clearly shifting towards a more offensive brand of football and the stats show that. Teams that have adopted this style have more overall success than those who haven’t. Go offense!

Most Receptions in a Game

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April 24, 2020

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Brandon Marshall makes a catch while playing for the Denver Broncos

The most catches ever recorded in a game was 21 by Brandon Marshall while playing for the Denver Broncos. That’s more than completion numbers than some quarterbacks even rattle off in a game. Even though Marshall caught 21 balls, the Broncos still lost the game 28-16 against Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. Manning would lead his team to a Superbowl appearance a couple months later.

Most Receptions in a game

The date was December 13, 2009 and the Broncos were in the middle of a heated playoff race. They came into Indianapolis with an 8-5 record that day against an undefeated 13-0 Colts team. Peyton Manning had an up and down day but did enough to secure the win, throwing for three touchdowns.

Marshall’s quarterback that day was journeyman Kyle Orton. He actually played pretty well, throwing for 277 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception. Toss in a completion rate of 71% and I’m even more impressed with the veteran.

Brandon Marshall caught his 21 receptions (off 28 targets) for 200 yards and two touchdowns. An interesting aspect of his stat line that day was that his longest catch only went for 23 yards. Usually when a receiver has a giant day like this, he has at least one or two big yardage receptions. Not Marshall. He averaged under 10 yards per catch.

Brandon Marshall NFL Career

After being drafted in the fourth round of the 2006 NFL draft, Marshall slightly tore his PCL in the preseason. He would only catch 20 receptions all year which is ironic because it’s less than the number of receptions he caught in the game when he had the most catches in a game of all time.

The following three seasons in Denver were great for Brandon Marshall as he eclipsed 1,100 yards and scored at least six touchdowns in each. He then went on to the Miami Dolphins and Chicago Bears, where he continued to put up great numbers. From 2007 to 2013, Marshall put up 1,000 receiving each year, topping out at 1,508 in 2012 for Chicago.

In 2015, he went to try his luck with the New York Jets and had a 109-reception, 1,500 yard season playing with notable Wonderlic stud Ryan Fitzpatrick. Although he couldn’t beat the number he put up in 2009 for most receptions in a game, Marshall had the highest average reception length of his career at 13.8 yards.

Next up for most catches in a game

Here are other notable high catch performances:

Player	Team	Receptions	Year
Brandon Marshall	Denver Broncos	21	2009
Terrell Owens	San Francisco 49ers	20	2000
Brandon Marshall	Denver Broncos	18	2008
Jason Witten	Dallas Cowboys	18	2012
Tom Fears	Los Angeles Rams	18	1950
Antonio Brown	Pittsburgh Steelers	17	2015
Clark Gaines	New York Jets	17	1980
Jerry Rice	San Francisco 49ers	16	1994
Michael Thomas	New Orleans Saints	16	2018
Antonio Brown	Pittsburgh Steelers	16	2015

Biggest NFL Stadiums

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April 23, 2020

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Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey is the biggest NFL stadium in the league

The NFL is the most popular American sport and creates more revenue than any other sports league in the world. Think about all the amount of access fans can get these days. It ranges from social media to NFL RedZone to behind the scenes footage to an incredible amount of analysis programs. Good thing the venues are massive enough to curb the high demand for the sport. Let’s take a look at these venues and see which NFL stadiums are the biggest across the league.

Biggest Stadiums in the NFL

Here is a list of the biggest stadiums in the league:

Name	Team(s)	Capacity
Metlife Stadium	New York Giants, New York Jets	82,500
FedExField	Washington Redskins	82,000
Lambeau Field	Green Bay Packers	81,441
AT&T Stadium	Dallas Cowboys	80,000
Arrowhead Stadium	Kansas City Chiefs	76,416
Empower Field at Mile High	Denver Broncos	76,125
Bank of America Stadium	Carolina Panthers	75,523
Mercedes-Benz Superdome	New Orleans Saints	73,208
NRG Stadium	Houston Texans	72,220
New Era Field	Buffalo Bills	71,608

MetLife Stadium takes the crown

We move the spotlight to the biggest city in the United States – New York City. Although actually in New Jersey, the home of the New York Giants and New York Jets is the biggest stadium used for NFL games. Metlife tops out with a capacity of 82,500 and is one of the newer stadiums across the entire country. In the first year of use, it was announced that Metlife would be the venue of Super Bowl XLVII in 2014. But this game can be easily forgotten because that was when the Seattle Seahawks pulverized the Denver Broncos 43-8. I definitely wouldn’t put that on the list of exciting Super Bowls.

It took two years for the Giants to host a playoff game there, which they ended up winning 24-2 over the Atlanta Falcons. In addition to that victory, the Giants ended up making a run to win Super Bowl XLVI against the New England Patriots.

Wide age range of NFL stadiums

Looking at the top ten list, it’s pretty crazy to see the age disparity amongst the stadiums. We have places like Lambeau Field that was first opened in 1957. That makes it the only venue that has been used for the entirety of the history of the NFL. Toss in New Era Field in Western New York and the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans were built in the early 1970s.

Metlife and AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas are both about a decade old. This makes the list span seven decades from the 1950s to the 2010s.

In conclusion, this list is full of different types of stadiums of all different ages which is kind of surprising.

Rob Gronkowski joins Brady on Buccaneers

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April 22, 2020

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Rob Gronkowski stands next to Tom Brady, both now playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tom Brady is in a new home, and a familiar face is joining him for a play date.

Rob Gronkowski is coming out of retirement to again play in the NFL, but he’ll be doing so in Tampa. The New England Patriots have traded Gronkowski and a seventh-round pick to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2020 draft, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported. The Buccaneers later confirmed the transaction.

Rob Gronkowski traded to Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The 30-year-old Gronkowski recently informed the New England Patriots he was interested in playing football again, and wanted to do so with Brady and the Buccaneers, Rapoport reported. Less than an hour after the news became public, the trade was agreed upon.

Gronkowski will honor his current contract, Rapoport added. Per Gronk’s agent Drew Rosenhaus, this means he will play 2020 on a one-year deal worth $10 million. Rapoport added that Gronkowski has already taken his physical, so the trade should go through.

“Rob Gronkowski is one of the best tight ends in NFL history and he plays the game with the type of passion and desire that sets him apart,” said Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht, via the team website. “Rob has played his entire career alongside Tom Brady and their accomplishments speak for themselves. Together they have developed the type of chemistry on and off the field that is crucial to success. Rob combines elite-level skills as both a receiver and blocker. But what really makes him special is that he’s a proven winner who brings that championship mindset and work ethic.”

Such a swap isn’t unprecedented. Running back Marshawn Lynch once did something similar, telling the Seahawks he’d like to again play but only for his hometown Raiders, who were still in Oakland at the time.

That trade saw the Seahawks get a fifth-round pick in the 2018 draft in exchange for sending the Raiders a sixth-round pick and Lynch’s rights. New England is instead netting a fourth-rounder for Gronkowski, who walked away from football after winning his third Super Bowl at the end of the 2018 season.

Rob Gronkowski Joins Tom Brady on Buccaneers

Now, Gronkowski is set to join a Buccaneers roster that currently has tight ends O.J. Howard and Cameron Brate. Whether that remains could be sorted out as the upcoming draft plays out beginning Thursday. Wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are also on board for Brady, making the Bucs offense hugely appealing on paper.

Gronkowski’s last great play came in Super Bowl LIII, when he caught a pass to set up the game-clinching TD in a 13-3 victory over the Los Angeles Rams. He retired following the season and spent much of the last year promoting various companies, including World Wrestling Entertainment (where he won the 24/7 title after pinning friend Mojo Rawley during Wrestlemania 36), and a cannabis business. The new collective bargaining agreement eliminated suspensions for drug tests that turn up positive for marijuana.

Gronkowski has been putting on weight to return to football, Rapoport reported, per sources informed of the situation.

Already a Hall of Famer

Gronkowski compiled a Hall of Fame career in nine seasons, catching 521 passes for 7,861 yards and 79 touchdowns. His best seasons came in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2017, in which he exceeded 1,000 yards receiving in each campaign. He also made four Pro Bowls (he also earned the honor in 2012) as he served as Brady’s top weapon.

Without Gronkowski, New England’s offense trudged through the second half of the 2019 season. It all came crashing down with a rare early finish in a wild-card loss to Tennessee.

The two will soon reunite in new city. We’ll see whether that produces a fourth title shared between them.

Brett Favre talks about future of Aaron Rodgers

Rodgers and Favre’s Friendship

Green Bay needs Aaron Rodgers

Bill Belichick’s dog Nike

Nike has improved his behavior

Fastest Players in the NFL

RBs and WRs

Kansas City breeds speed

Jim Harbaugh surprises Ohio school students

Harbaugh lifts spirits

Is playing at home an advantage in Sports?

NFL Home Field Advantage

Home Field Advantage by Playoff Round

Packers trade up for Jordan Love

Green Bay preparing for future

What wins in the NFL – offense or defense?

NFL Playoffs – Offense vs Defense

Top offenses vs great defenses

Does Defense Win Championships?

Focus on Offense

Most Receptions in a game

Brandon Marshall NFL Career

Next up for most catches in a game

Biggest Stadiums in the NFL

MetLife Stadium takes the crown

Wide age range of NFL stadiums

Rob Gronkowski traded to Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Rob Gronkowski Joins Tom Brady on Buccaneers

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