Rob Gronkowski: 'I'm Ready' to Return to Football

Although it is surprising that tight end Rob Gronkowski returned to football to play with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, what may be even more surprising is that he wanted to return to football at all.

Over the past year, Gronkowski has trolled from time to time about potentially un-retiring, but many of us thought of it more of a way for him to grab attention and headlines as he started fading away from the football spotlight. He emphasized on numerous occasions how good he was feeling and how much he was enjoying retirement, so hanging up his cleats and calling it a career seemed like the right thing to do, especially with the amount of significant injuries he had dealt with late in his career.

But apparently Gronkowski didn't feel the same way. In fact, he was just waiting to have the "right feeling" in order to make a return to the football field.

“I’m back. I always said when I have that feeling and it feels right, I will be ready to take the field again," Gronkowski told FOX's Jay Glazer. "And I have that feeling. I’m ready.”

In his first comments since getting traded to the #Bucs @RobGronkowski just texted me the following “I’m back. I always said when I have that feeling and it feels right, I will be ready to take the field again. And I have that feeling. I’m ready.” @NFLonFOX
— Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) April 21, 2020

The "right feeling" must include catching passes from Tom Brady outside of New England, year-round warm weather, no state income taxes, and, oh yeah - being healthy.

It will be interesting to see what head coach Bruce Arians will be able to get out of Gronkowski. Though Gronkowski feels ready to return to action, he is much lighter than he was during his final season with the Patriots in 2018. On top of that, Gronkowski had much more of a blocking role during his final year with New England, so what will his role be with the Buccaneers if he has a slimmer build?

One has to think that Gronkowski didn't come out of retirement to throw down blocks. He came out of retirement to catch passes from his old friend. So Tampa Bay may do what they can to revive the Gronkowski of old, which is one of the greatest pass-catching tight end we've even seen in the history of the NFL.

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