Charissa Thompson and Rob Gronkowski on Hall of Fame, Patriot Way and Best Wings In Buffalo

All right, we are here on Radio Row at the Bounty set.

Rob Gronkowski, Karissa Thompson, um.

What, what, how are you feeling?

Uh, your buddy, uh, Tom says he doesn't have a dog in this fight.

Do you have a dog in this fight in this game?

I'm a dog.

I'm always in a fight.

If I'm fighting other dogs, if I'm fighting other humans that think they're dogs, I'm just ready to go.

Are you a dog?

I'm ready to fight you.

Uh, but Tom is, what, what did we say, Chris, a professional sports broadcaster who has to stay neutral.

So we understand the situation, you know, but it's all good.

Tom is a 7-time Super Bowl champ.

We were just on the Stephen A.

Smith show.

He says Tom can do whatever the heck Tom wants to do.

He can say whatever the heck he wants to say as well.

When you have that many Super Bowl rings and that many wins, you played till 45 years old, you change the culture of the NFL.

You change the culture of, you know, how to, how to go about your business.

You change the culture of what age you can play to, you know, for a professional athlete, then you can do whatever you want, and he's right.

Do you have a dog in this fight?

I'm from Seattle, so of course I'm going to root for my hometown team, but, um.

You know, at this point professionally, I've been doing it for a long time that I root for players too.

So it's easy to make the argument for Sam Darnold and everything that he's been through, but also what Drake May has done in just his second season.

And I love Mike Vrabel .

Mike Vrabel reminds me a lot of my dad, very much like, you know, grab the, the lunch pail and go to work and, and handle your business.

So, um, I, yeah, it's, it, I can make an argument for anyone, but I will, of course, lean with my hometown team of the Seahawks and love to have some redemption from that Super Bowl 11 years ago against the Patriots where it all.

Went bad fast.

I would rather have Parissa have redemption than trying to go for her 3rd Super Bowl in a row when making 3 Super Bowls, you know.

So that meaning like that means that I would have lost that Super Bowl 49.

So I'm, I'm glad she's going for redemption, yeah, because it would have taken a ring away from Gronk, and I don't want that to happen as his, as his wingman.

I wanted him to have that ring.

She knew, she, she saw, she projected the future.

She knew we're gonna be doing this campaign together, so she knew I needed that Super Bowl ring.

So, um, I'm sorry, how much do you hate Malcolm Butler?

I don't hate Malcolm Butler.

Are you kidding me?

An undrafted free agent, it's, it's another awesome part of the story that you loved.

It was the unlikely hero, and that's the part that we love about any of these games, right?

I mean, there's an expression what comes about on any given Sunday for a reason.

You don't know who's going to be that hero.

Would I have loved it to be Marshawn Lynch, of course, getting the ball again and punching it in and then winning Super Bowl MVP.

Yeah, of course.

But, uh, I'm looking forward to this matchup and a rematch of two really good teams that we didn't think were going to be here based off of, of sort of their turnaround with the organizations.

Let's talk Hall of Fame real quick.

What ballot is Brady going in?

You said he's now a 4th ballot Hall of Famer.

I mean, with everything that went down with RKK and Coach Belichick, I mean, I don't see Brady going in as a 1st ballot anymore.

The system's screwed up and, uh, I can see Tom.

A 4th, possibly a 5th if he's lucky, maybe a, a 3rd ballot Hall of Famer.

But so I think what's happened, and, and Gronk will echo the sentiments on this, it shows that the system's flawed.

Nobody thinks that Bill Belichick shouldn't have been a 1st ballot Hall of Famer except for the voters based off of how the criteria was changed.

So there's all these different things that go in.

So it's, I think it's less about, it's not an indictment on him, it's an indictment on the system, which Obviously if it's broken, we need to fix it.

Talk to me about Patriots hate being back in full effect because I think some of the stuff with discourse with Belichick not getting in there, you know, Patriots back in the Super Bowl.

How does it feel to have Patriots hate back in full effect?

I mean, it's just incredible, especially for the New England Patriots fans out there, but it's a remarkable turnaround.

RKK was going to do anything possible to get the New England Patriots back, you know, into, into playoff contention and Super Bowl contention.

Now he has exceeded expectations as well.

I mean, he thought he had his coach and Gerard Mayo.

He saw that it wasn't working out.

It really wasn't the right fit.

And look at him.

He makes changes right on the spot and he's going to make changes.

RKK isn't scared to make the tough call because that's what football is all about.

It's a business.

And you got to make the tough call.

You got to make the tough decisions in order to get a winning team out on the field.

You just really have to.

That's the nature of the game.

And he sure made that call and he made the right call going out and getting coach Vrabel, who has, you know, his The whole entire team.

He has a roster buying in into the culture, and that's what's making them the football team, you know, that they are.

And they hit on everything.

They hit on free agency, they hit on Drake May in the draft before, they hit on Coach Vrabel, obviously.

Uh, they hit on the rookies because how many rookies are contributing for the New England Patriots right now?

And that's how you win Super Bowls.

It's the guys that you draft, and they're making a big impact on your team.

Rob might be biased in that, he just mentioned Gerard Mayo, so I'll get your perspective because he put, why, why do you think Gerard Mayo wasn't able to connect?

With that Patriots team in a way that Vrabel has.

Yeah, I, I, you know, I'm not in that locker room, so there's, you know, a lot of different variables that could go into that.

What I would say in response to that is more of a highlight even what's happened up in Seattle, that here you had a long tenured coach in Pete Carroll, and he had so much success, but they moved on from Pete Carroll just like they moved on from Geno Smith and they brought in a guy like Mike McDonald.

You know, obviously his, you know, defensive prowess and all the decisions they made, but even if you looked at the trade deadline, going out and getting Rasheed Shaheed because of Clit Kubiak's relation to him.

And then he takes that kickoff return for a touchdown, and there's all of these things, which is why we love this game so much because moving these chess pieces at just the right time ends up culminating in a victory.

What do you make of, I want to ask you specifically about Logan Paul because you've got to spend some time with him, and it seems like he's taking off in the WWE.

What do you make of his rise in that as a star in that sport?

Oh man, Logan Paul is an incredible athlete and what he has done with his career, you know, being a star with YouTuber, but then picking it up and being an athlete as well.

And that just shows how much work and how dedication he puts into his craft.

And now he's one of the superstars in WWE.

He's brought so much attention to WWE.

He's brought so many of his fans, you know, to, to the nature of WWE as well.

And it's not like, you know, he's gotten this opportunity because he was such a big YouTube star.

He's gotten this opportunity because he puts the work in and he wants to be a star in the WWE and he wants to be a character and he wants to, you know, put, you know, do all the hard stunts and go out there and, and make it feel like he belongs.

And that's You know, 100% what he's doing, and he's so fun to watch and all the backflips that he does, all the scary stunts that he does, it just shows that he has no fear as well, and that's what you gotta have if you want to be successful all over the place is no fear.

All right, I'm gonna wrap it up here.

Did you ever have a t-shirt, that no fear t-shirt?

I feel like I, I probably did it some the 9th bases loaded, 2 outs, no fear.

You're too young for that.

Did you ever have a no fear shirt?

No, I, I do.

You know what I'm talking about exactly what you're talking about.

That was my shirt.

You know what else chicks dig?

Bounty, because you can't have football without wings, you can't have wings without bounty.

And a fun fact about me that you didn't ask for, uh, I always wanted to be a sports broadcaster and so I use a Bounty paper towel roll.

Tennis ball taped on the top of it as a microphone and I taped that and ended up putting it on my resume reel, um, and sent it out to different news directors to try to get a job because in the beginning when, you know, before the, the internet is taken off the way it has used to send, send out DVDs and so you, if you didn't catch their attention in the 1st 30 seconds, it was over for you.

So, uh, Bounty and I go way back, but I'm just lucky enough to have.

A wingman like Gronk walk through this life from Buffalo.

I want, I gotta ask the age old question, ranch or blue cheese?

Well, as Gronk has taught me because he's a wingman, if I go to Buffalo and I order ranch, I will be kicked out of the restaurant.

It's only blue cheese in Buffalo with the wings.

You got it.

Best wings in Buffalo.

Yes.

Oh, Anchor Bar, got it.

Yes, thank you so much.