Gronkowski sidesteps ankle issue
Pats receiver centre of unwanted attention
INDIANAPOLIS / So many famous body parts will visit this plain-spoken city on the plains during Super Bowl week. Madonna’s arms. Katy Perry’s vacant, staring eyes. Tim Tebow’s corporeal body.
And they all pale next to Rob Gronkowski’s ankle. The left one, mind. Nobody cares about the right one, because unlike the left one, it is not sprained.
He did not practise again Wednesday.
Since Gronkowski is New England’s biggest weapon, literally and otherwise, his ankle has become the locus of the Super Bowl attention that would otherwise be spent calculating why Tom Brady is just so damned dreamy. Instead, it’s all on the Gronk. “I’m day-to-day, every single day,” says Gronkowski, good-naturedly.
You and the rest of us, pal. But unlike the rest of us, Gronkowski is the engine that makes the twotight-end Patriots offence go. He caught 90 passes for 1,327 yards and 17 touchdown this season, setting records for receiving yards and touchdowns by a tight end. Along with multipurpose tight end Aaron Hernandez, Gronkowski is the fulcrum of this potentially revolutionary offence, where the wide receivers are extras in the play. If this is a rematch of Super Bowl XLII, Gronkowski is basically playing the part of Randy Moss.
Unless, of course, he can’t. Since he plays for the Patriots, the big galoot from Amherst, N.Y., has been forced to play the part of the prisoner of war, held by the media: name, rank, and uniform number. This has produced a fair amount of catand-mouse back-and-forth, if the cat were none too bright, and the mouse behind a thick pane of glass. Take, for instance, his interaction with entertainment personality Maria Menounos, here for the celebrity television show Extra, who got his attention in the crowded Media Day crowd by crooning, “Grooo-ooooooooonk.”
Menounos (wearing a sparkly Tom Brady jersey): “OK, a couple of questions. First and foremost, and most importantly, how are you feeling?”
Gronkowski (wearing a white baseball cap backward): “I’m feeling good. We’re taking it day by day right now, whatever the training staff has to offer, whatever they have to offer to get to me to do, prepared, we’re getting better every single day, we’re moving in the right direction, we’re moving in a positive direction every single day, getting better every day, so when it comes down to Sunday I’m to the maximum point where I could be, where I’m feeling.”
The six- foot- six, 265- pound Gronkowski had been hammering away on these talking points for the better part of an hour, and at this stage of Media Day he was clearly a little worn down.
Earlier, in response to the question, “Rob, what’s it like to know that you have the most talked-about body parts here?” he said, halfjoking, “What parts are we talking about?”
When asked if Patriots coach Bill Belichick had given him instructions on what to say, Gronkowski replied, “Has he? No, I mean, basically (you) come out here, you can say what you have to say. We’re just out here having a good time, having a blast with the media.”
He would make a poor White House press secretary, but he can be a hell of a tight end, if healthy. So every step is scrutinized for a limp — one was detected Tuesday, and it was still there Wednesday. By the way, Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora said Tuesday that when he missed four games with a high ankle sprain earlier this season, he could not have played in a mere two weeks. “That’ll be rough,” he said.
In a game where the Giants defensive line will attempt to replicate the damage done in Super Bowl XLII, taking seconds and space and breath away from Tom Brady, he will need all his weapons — his reliable target and his escape hatches, his big-play guys and his safety valves. He will need a healthy Gronk.
Gronkowski was actually in the stands with his father on that famous night in 2008, in Arizona, when the Giants crashed through Brady’s defences like waves, and the Patriots’ undefeated season vanished into the Arizona air. This time, if he is lucky, he will have a front-row seat.