Is Rob Gronkowski under a ton of pressure in 2012?
“I think he’s fine, I just think he’s under a higher level of scrutiny now. Let’s be honest he backed himself into this corner, he had what 90 catches, 1,300 yards, 18 touchdowns last year. The problem he has created for himself is by putting himself out there as much as he has is that the bar is so high from last year that if he goes for 70 catches, 1,000 yards, 12 touchdowns which would be good tight end numbers everybody’s going to attribute it to the partying.”
Breer makes a great point here. No one should expect Gronkowski to match the otherworldly numbers that he had last year, but they will. It's no slight on Gronkowski and I don't believe the "Summer of Gronk" would have had an effect on that at all. However, just with so many other weapons on the team I think the ball will be spread around even more this year.
Still, you can believe Gronkowski's public spotlight hasn't been a distraction for him but that doesn't change the fact that it has potentially put him in a tough position, at least as far as his perception in the media goes. Any struggles that Gronkowski has are going to be magnified because of his off-season, and the two are automatically going to be linked.
I'm sure that Gronkowski likely doesn't care about this, but we've all seen how aggressive the Boston media can be. He's not going to be able to avoid questions on the topic if he drops a touchdown during the season.
Listen to the full interview below:
