The New England Patriots will be without their biggest matchup nightmare when this season kicks off. Rob Gronkowski, the team’s indomitable tight end, announced his decision to retire this offseason, and while it’s always surprising when someone retires from a sport at age 29, in the case of Gronkowski, it made sense that he’d call it a career.
A pretty frequent take is that Gronkowski — a 6’6, 265 pound marvel who mixed the receiving prowess of a receiver with the blocking ability of an offensive lineman — was so huge that teams had to be more physical with him than they would be with other players. This led to somewhat frequent injuries and playing through pain, and after appearing in all 16 regular season games during each of his first two years in the league, Gronkowski played in 73 of a potential 112 regular season games in the following seven seasons.
Gronkowski had flirted with the idea of retiring in the past, but following his third Super Bowl victory this February, he hung up his cleats. On Tuesday, Gronkowski announced his decision to hop on board with a company that advocates for athletes to use CBD in injury recovery, and at one point, he gave an explanation for why he retired that was nothing short of heartbreaking.
"I want to be clear to my fans … I was not in a good place. Football was bringing me down."
–Rob Gronkowski on his decision to retire pic.twitter.com/zEek2QNPjH
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) August 27, 2019
“I wanna be clear to my fans,” Gronkowski said. “I needed to recover. I was not in a good place, football was bringing me down, and I didn’t like it, and I was losing that joy in life.
“I really was, and I was fighting through it, and I knew what I signed up for, and I knew what I was fighting through, and I knew I just had to fix myself,” Gronkowski continued.
Gronkowski explained the depths to which he was suffering by revealing that an otherwise innocuous hit during the Patriots’ Super Bowl win over the Los Angeles Rams led to him laying in bed in severe pain that evening.
Gronkowski said he took a hit to the quad. It left him crying in his bed After winning a Super Bowl. Couldn't sleep for more than 20 minutes a night. Drained 1000 mL of blood out of his leg.
What stands out to me: It was a totally unremarkable play. Standard football play. pic.twitter.com/Epl23CqNHN
— Michael Hurley (@michaelFhurley) August 27, 2019
This event, along with Gronkowski’s candid discussion of how injuries ruined his ability to enjoy football, comes on the heels of another All-Pro caliber player prematurely calling it a career due to the myriad of bumps and bruises they suffered during their career. Former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck shockingly announced his retirement over the weekend, with Gronkowski saying that he empathizes with Luck for having to make this decision.
