Gronkowski: Need to be ‘ all- in’ to play NFL again

Rob Gronkowski said he knows what people expected after Tom Brady announced last month he was unretiring and would play next season.

Gronkowski, the four- time All- Pro tight end, surely would team up with Brady like they had the past two seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and for nine seasons with the New England Patriots, winning four Super Bowls.

“I mean, it definitely goes together, like peanut butter and jelly, no doubt about it,” Gronkowski, 32, told USA TODAY Sports. “I love catching touchdowns from Tom. He loves throwing them to me. But he respects my decision, just like I respect his decisions.”

Gronkowski said he remains undecided about his future in football. He sat out the 2019 season during a temporary, one- year retirement before joining the Bucs and said the team has given him no deadline for finalizing his plans for next season. He is currently a free agent.

“I’ve played 11 years,” Gronkowski said. “It’s not like you wake up after a game and you feel amazing. It’s a beating. You get hit every single play.

“So if I’m not all- in to do that, then I’m not going to put myself out there in that situation. But if I’m feeling that, if I want to go knock my head around, you know, put my body on the line, if I feel like doing that again, miss that, I would certainly sign another contract.”

If he were in charge of the No. 1 pick of the draft, Gronkowski said, he’d select Aidan Hutchinson, the defensive end who played for Michigan. “I just watched one of those Michigan games and the way he was shooting off the line, just his quickness and his explosiveness is pretty special,” Gronkowski said. “So I would probably go with him because if you get to the quarterback many, many times in the game, you’re going to most likely win that game.”

Gronkowski, a second- round pick in 2010, said teams also can shrewdly work the later rounds: “There’s so many talented players that drop into the second round, third round, all the way up to the seventh round. I would say if you’ve got an eye for talent, I think you can pick out some good players and then they can play cheap on your team for a couple years and just to help out your team.”