Although his own NFL future is undetermined, Rob Gronkowski shared his thoughts about how long his longtime teammate Tom Brady will keep playing pro football during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
The 32-year-old Gronkowski, who played nine seasons with Brady in New England before joining him in Tampa Bay, said he initially thought the NFL’s oldest quarterback would sit out a year before ending his “retirement.” Instead, 44-year-old Brady returned after about 40 days (likely after confirming former Tampa coach Bruce Arians would be gone.)
Now that Brady is back, Gronkowski indicated he thinks the seven-time Super Bowl winner still has gas in the tank. A lot.
“I was not surprised at all,” Gronkowski said. “I was actually surprised how quick it was because I thought he was possibly going to take a year off or something like that and maybe come back after that. I believe he’ll have it until he’s at least 50 years old. I see his work ethic day in and day out, and it’s second to none.”
Even though Gronk is more than a decade younger than Brady, he’s far less certain about his NFL future and has previously said that he’s “not ready to commit to the game of football right now.”
However, if he does come back, it will only be to play with Brady.
“Peanut butter and jelly. Bread and butter. We’ll keep going,” Gronkowski told Kimmel. ”I don’t know, just because that duo, man. It’s just so hard to get that connection. Especially in the NFL world, it doesn’t last that long. To see somebody have that connection for nine-plus years, it’s definitely in the back of my mind.”
Given a new report from ProFootballTalk, it’s possible that Gronkowski will sit out this season and then come back to the NFL to rejoin Brady in Florida … but not with the Bucs.
There have been previous rumors about Brady wanting to join the Miami Dolphins and PFT has some more details about what was potentially going to go down in South Beach. “When Tom Brady retired on February 1, his next move already was coming into focus. Per multiple sources, Brady eventually would have been introduced as a minority owner of the Dolphins,” per PFT. “The announcement would have been made as soon as the following week, which was the week that preceded the Super Bowl. Then, the Dolphins would have at some point gotten the rights from the Buccaneers to bring Brady to the roster.”
Barring Brady signing an extension with Tampa, a move to the Dolphins is still in play unless current Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is able to take advantage of all the weapons he has, including Tyreek Hill, and live up to the status of being the fifth overall pick in the 2020 draft.
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