Gronk Entertains His LA Bowl Audience In Unfiltered Manner

Rob Gronkowski is similar to a Saturday Night Live skit as a man in perpetual motion. He has the Boston accent, heavy in the lag in pronunciation. He always seems to be playing a goofy character when in reality it's just him being him.

On Friday, he sat at a front table alone and entered a room full of news media types at the LA Bowl run-up news conference before the coaches, Boise State's Spencer Danielson and the University of Washington's Jedd Fisch joined him.

When he entered the room, Gronkowski, the former highly accomplished University of Arizona and NFL tight end, tripped and nearly fell down, quipping, "I'm already drunk."

Always good at improvising, Gronkowski was asked for a game prediction -- and on the fly, he said Boise State 27, Washington 24.

For one specific and very pointed reason.

"That's why I'm an analyst," he wisedcracked. "That's how I predict my games, because Jedd betrayed us at Arizona."

What he was referring to was Fisch leaving the Wildcats after three seasons and coming to the UW in 2024.

"I'm going to give him some garbage for it," he said. "You have to."

Yet it was all done in good fun, with Gronkowski confessing what he had done when Fisch walked into the room and they embraced each other.

Rob Gronkowski was entertaining while dealing with reporters at SoFi Stadium. | Dan Raley

These two have never been player and coach before, with the man called Gronk playing at Arizona in 2007-09, leaving 13 years before Fisch was hired to coach the Wildcats.

They missed each other with the New England Patriots, too, with Fisch coaching the 2020 season there, two years after Gronkowski had left the franchise following nine seasons with the franchise.

Gronk is so unfiltered, he also reiterated what was reported earlier in the week -- that this is the final LA Bowl. That was something the game organizers wouldn't deal with when questioned about it.

Gronk has been the life of the party at the LA Bowl, singing the national anthem, racing a Boise State dog named Blitz and sharing in a push-up contest.

While they missed each other at Arizona by more than a decade, Gronkowski shared how he came back to his alma mater after 10 years of being absent at the invitation of Fisch and shared in some silly stuff to entertain the players and the fans -- such as catching a ball dropped by a helicopter to set a Guiness world record.

"That's what Jedd does is he brings fun to the table," Gronk said. "He knows what these players want and that's why he has success, as well."

It's safe to say that both Fisch and Gronkowski do that.

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