Gronk confident he’s ready for 2017 season

The last time Rob Gronkowski appeared in all 16 regularseason games for the Patriots was in 2011. Gronkowski is confident he’s fully ready for the 2017 season.

When healthy, New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski can be one of the most devastating weapons in the NFL.

The 6-foot-6, 265-pound tight end is one of quarterback Tom Brady’s favorite targets. Seemingly able to run through opposing defenses at will, Gronkowski is the first tight end with three straight seasons of 10 or more touchdowns (2010-12), and with three seasons of 1,000 or more yards receiving and 10 or more touchdowns. A three-time AllPro, he led the league with 17 touchdown receptions in 2011, his second pro season.

The problem for Gronkowski and the Patriots has been his ability to stay on the field. He appeared in eight games last season before undergoing December back surgery — the third in his career — missing the Patriots’ stunning comeback win in the Super Bowl. The last time he appeared in all 16 regular-season games was 2011. Since his rookie year, he has appeared in 88 of 112 regular-season games.

Gronkowski is confident he’s fully ready for the 2017 season.

“Definitely no doubts,” he said Tuesday after the first of the Patriots’ three-day mandatory minicamp at Gillette Stadium. “All the hard work you put in is what you’re going to get out of it. So, I love to put in the work, love the challenge sometimes. So ... now I’m good to go.

“It’s always important whenever I get a little setback like that that happened, just get back to where I need to be and I feel like I am, doing everything out here, and competing. It’s fun.”

Jets release Harris

David Harris has made his final tackle for the New York Jets.

The playmaking linebacker was released, a stunning move in which the team parted ways with one of its most-productive and well-respected players.

“It was an organizational decision,” coach Todd Bowles said.

Cutting the franchise’s second-leading tackler, who practiced with the team Tuesday and was in the locker room afterward, will save the Jets $6.5 million on the salary cap. Bowles said the team and Harris, a second-round draft pick out of Michigan in 2007, had been discussing a salary reduction.

“They didn’t come to an agreement and we didn’t come to an agreement, and it led to this,” Bowles said. “It wasn’t an easy time. David has been a Jet all his life. He ... bled green.”

The move was a surprise because of Harris’ status as the Jets’ longest-tenured player — and it being so late in the offseason.

In a statement released to The Associated Press, Harris’ agents Brian Mackler and Jim Ivler called the timing of the decision “very disappointing.”

Fox hires Blandino

Fox has hired former NFL officiating chief Dean Blandino to work as a rules analyst for the network’s college football and NFL coverage in 2017.

Blandino joins Mike Pereira, another former head of NFL officiating who has been Fox’s rules analyst for several years.

Blandino, who worked under Pereira at the NFL beginning in 1998, resigned from the league earlier this year,

“Something I’ve always admired about Fox Sports is their dedication to keeping viewers as informed as possible when it comes to the rules and regulations of the game,” Blandino said. “They were the trailblazers in creating this type of position, and I’m excited to now be a part of it.”

Lynch comeback

For Marshawn Lynch, the decision to come out of retirement and resume his NFL career was made as soon as the league announced his hometown Raiders were leaving for Las Vegas.

Lynch wanted to give Oakland fans one last chance to cheer an Oakland native playing for an Oakland team.

“Maybe them staying probably wouldn’t have been so big for me to want to come and play,” he said Tuesday in his first news conference since joining the Raiders in April. “But knowing that they were leaving and a lot of the kids here probably won’t have an opportunity to see most of their idols growing up being a hometown no more. With me being from here, continuing to be here, it gives them an opportunity to get to see somebody that’s actually from where they’re from and for the team that they probably idolize.”