Bill Belichick Reportedly 'Chastised' Rob Gronkowski in Front of Team Last Year For Working with Alex Guerrero
By Jason Lisk
The Rob Gronkowskiversus Bill Belichick stories continue to come out of New England. Last month, we saw reports that a trade from New England was becoming more likely as Gronkowski still hasn’t been fully committed. And now, we get more info as to why. From the Boston Herald:
"At one point early last season, the Hoodie chastised Gronk in front of the players for being a TB12 client, according to a source. So maybe that was Belichick’s not-so-subtle way of trying to keep everyone from jumping ship on the team’s training staff."
We saw with the Seth Wickersham story that dropped right before the playoffs that there were cracks in the Brady/Belichick relationship over other players going to Alex Guerrero and working out at TB12, and outside the training staff. Gronkowski was not prominently featured in that story that centered on the QB and coach, but if he was publicly “chastised” as one of the team leaders you can understand some acrimony. Gronkowski rebounded from the previous season that ended due to injuries and had another all-pro year.
There were prior reports of Patriots players feeling “miserable” under Belichick, and Tom Curran of NBC Boston also says that the call-out happened before the season.
Source told me that, During camp, when Gronk was performing poorly, he was called out in front of team for being ineffective. Change in regimen was derisively referred to as the reason. This was big part of Gronk's irritation that lasted all year. https://t.co/xl9YzZqmf2
— Tom E. Curran (@tomecurran) April 9, 2018
The Patriots have been a model organization, and have seamlessly moved on from star players and kept the machine rolling. I’m not sure two have been any more important than Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski, though.