Rob Gronkowski may be injured once again as the New England Patriots await the beginning of their postseason, but when he’s healthy, he’s always one of the hardest players in the NFL to defend. He’s one of the bigger tight ends in the league, a size problem compounded by his elite athleticism. But if he’s a physically dominant NFL player, we shudder to think about what it must have been like for (relatively) normal high school kids to try to stay with him on a football field. Luckily, thanks to an unearthed YouTube video, now we can see just how terrifying it was.
There’s an impressive catch at the end of the video in which Gronk reaches through a defensive back as if he isn’t there, but what really stands out about Gronk: The High School Years (besides what we can only imagine were truly epic keggers) was his play as a monstrous defensive end. He significantly outweighs most of the offensive linemen lined up to block him, and he doesn’t so much sack quarterbacks as subsume them into his being, only to then deposit them on the turf. This is the price those poor souls had to pay for being quarterback of a high school football team. Otherwise, their lives were probably pretty sweet.
(H/t TBL)
