Dead to Me: Rob Gronkowski

Intro

I’m taking my dead to me series into the dynasty realm. At least, dynasty leagues will be the primary focus for me in this series in the future. Writing about dynasty makes more sense for a series on burying a player, as we look at the player’s value over time.

Now, it’s time to put the final burial on Rob Gronkowski. I mentioned Gronkowski in a short blurb in a risers and fallers article this week, but he deserves his own article. For someone who was once a star, he should get a proper send-off.

Past Production

Here are Rob Gronkowski’s full NFL stats.

The Patriots drafted Gronkowski in the second round of the 2010 NFL Draft with the 42nd overall pick. They had a receiving corps led by Randy Moss and Wes Welker with Deion Branch, Julian Edelman, and Brandon Tate as depth options. However, Moss quickly fell off, and Gronkowski emerged as a go-to target for Tom Brady. 

However, the Patriots drafted another tight end in the 2010 class, Aaron Hernandez. While we all know what happened to Hernandez later on, he put up similar numbers to Gronkowski in their rookie year. Hernandez had more targets, receptions, and yards, although Gronkowski led the Patriots with 10 receiving touchdowns to Hernandez’s six.

After 2010, the Patriots remade their offense, centering on Welker, Gronkowski, Hernandez, and Branch. No other receiving weapon made any significant impact in 2011, with each of those four players having 90 or more targets and no other player with more than 32. Gronkowski had a historic season, scoring 17 receiving touchdowns. Welker turned 30 years old during the 2011 season, forcing the Patriots to replace him in their future offense.

In 2012 and 2013, Gronkowski suffered somewhat of a setback. He missed multiple games with injuries in both seasons, although he was a rock-solid TE1 when healthy. Also, the Patriots lost Hernandez to his numerous arrests and crimes after the 2012 season. When both Hernandez and Gronkowski played together, they were both TE1s, but Gronkowski certainly had the edge in both talent and production. 

Either way, Gronkowski had to carry the load himself from that point forward in his Patriots’ career. It’s hard to look at Gronkowski’s dynasty value from that time since dynasty leagues weren’t as popular back then. But, I assume he was the TE1 in dynasty leagues based on his age and production thus far despite his injuries.

Going into 2014, Gronkowski returned to full health, and he played his first entire season as the Patriots’ true, dominant, top overall receiving option. He led the team in receiving yards and touchdowns by a significant margin, and he had only three fewer targets than Julian Edelman. Gronkowski silenced any doubters with his 2014 campaign, and he became the dynasty TE1 by a lot. He was only 26 years old in the 2015 offseason, just heading into his prime.

Essentially, Gronkowski repeated his 2014 season in 2015. Edelman only played nine games, so Gronkowski became the unquestioned top option while Edelman was out. After 2015, Gronkowski had played five straight seasons where he averaged a top-two finish in fantasy PPG. While he had some injury struggles in 2012 and 2013, he had played in 80 of a possible 96 games in his NFL career, far from injury-prone. If there were any player you could expect to defy the odds and be a TE1 for 10 more years, Gronkowski was the man to do it.

Warning Signs

Unfortunately, everything went way downhill after 2015. In 2016, Gronkowski struggled through an injury-riddled season, but he wasn’t the same player anyway. He averaged far fewer fantasy points per game, and he didn’t see the same featured role in the Patriots’ offense. Edelman returned to dominate targets while James White stepped up into a more significant role.

Even though Gronkowski showed signs of decline in 2016, he returned to his old position in 2017 out of necessity. The Patriots lost Edelman for the entire season to a torn ACL, forcing them to funnel targets over the middle of the field to Gronkowski. Brandin Cooks led the team in targets, but Gronkowski had slightly more receptions, yards, and one more touchdown.

However, Gronkowski’s 2017 performance was a mirage, not a return to normalcy. He finally showed a massive decline in 2018, finishing way behind White and Edelman in targets. The Patriots began to use Gronkowski more as a blocker, focusing on their running game behind Sony Michel. While Gronkowski was still a back-end TE1 when he played, he wasn’t the same dominant force, and he no longer forced defenses to focus on him. 

After Gronkowski’s disappointing 2018 season, he decided to walk away from the NFL at 29 years old. Considering his poor 2018 form, I wasn’t too surprised that he chose to walk away, especially since the Patriots didn’t seem to want him around. His dynasty value immediately evaporated, falling off most dynasty rosters. Even if some held him, most dropped him once he sat out the entire 2019 season.

The Future

I believe that Gronkowski only wanted to play with Tom Brady, but he was sick of dealing with Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick. While that wasn’t possible in 2019, an opportunity appeared when Brady signed with the Buccaneers for the 2020 season. Shortly after that signing, Gronkowski announced his return to football, and the Patriots quickly traded him to the Buccaneers.

After that trade, I explored Gronkowski’s redraft and dynasty value. I believed he had a dynasty value around a future second-round rookie pick, and I ranked him as my TE9 for 2020. I thought that Brady would insist on incorporating Gronkowski into the Buccaneers’ offense, despite head coach Bruce Arians’ propensity to ignore the tight end position.

Unfortunately, none of that happened for Gronkowski. Arians insists that Gronkowski is mostly a blocker for 2020, choosing to focus on his wide receivers as the primary targets in the passing offense. Even Brady mentioned recently that he didn’t feel a need to incorporate Gronkowski into the target rotation. Instead, Brady wants to throw to whoever gives him the best chance to win, which is likely Chris Godwin and Mike Evans.

Therefore, Gronkowski has no future in either redraft or dynasty formats. He’s not going to suddenly rediscover his form because he’ll never get the opportunity to do so. Like I said in my risers and fallers article, Gronkowski carries only name value at this point. I couldn’t have been more wrong about Gronkowski for 2020 and his future. I believed he could overcome retirement because he was an exceptional talent, but I forgot to consider Arians as a significant factor. Arians already destroyed O.J. Howard’s value, and he’s doing the same to Gronkowski, whether he would’ve had value or not.

Thanks for reading this article. You can find me on Twitter at @DFF_Karp. I love to interact with anyone in the community, so reach out at any time! I take fantasy questions and help with all formats, so keep sending those questions my way.

Previous Dead to Me Articles: Dead to Me: The Original, Aaron Rodgers, Sony Michel, Tevin Coleman, Marlon Mack, Kerryon Johnson, Jared Cook, Curtis Samuel, Emmanuel Sanders