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It didn’t take much time after the end of Super Bowl LII for people to start speculating about what would be next for New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who has been plagued by injuries over the course of his football career. The 28-year-old still hasn’t spent any of the money he’s earned from playing in the NFL, and some people are speculating he might be thinking about taking a less dangerous career path by pivoting to acting or wrestling in the WWE— where no one is ever injured and every athlete lives a long and healthy life free of any problems frequently associated with repeated blows to the head.
Earlier this week, Patriots fans and members of keeper leagues everywhere freaked out after Gronk posted a cryptic tweet many people believed was alluding to retirement that might have just been a transcription of the message inside a fortune cookie he ate. His future— much like that movie where George Clooney gets really, really into frequent flyer miles— is still up in the air, but it turns out this isn’t the first time Gronkowski has considered hanging up his cleats.
On Monday, Tom Curran chatted with NBC Sports Boston and revealed Gronk had actually thought about retiring during training camp before the start of last season
“He seriously considered stepping away from the game in training camp. He had kind of had it. At that point his body wasn’t responding. He wanted to train a certain way. The team didn’t necessarily want him to train the way he wanted to train. They were at logger heads. He was pissed.”
No matter what ends up happening, I think we can all agree his entire journey has been a Gronking to remember.