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Tom Brady is often hailed as the NFL's GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) with his seven Super Bowl titles over a 23-year career. For 11 of those years, he has been inseparable from tight end Rob Gronkowski, who played with Brady for nine seasons on the New England Patriots before joining Brady on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a couple of seasons after coming out of retirement.
Brady and Gronk have complimented each other perfectly over 141 games, which helped elevate the quarterback's numbers as well as making Gronk—a five-time pro bowler, four-time first-team NFL all-pro, and four-time Super Bowl champion—a "go-to" guy for Brady.
Speaking on the sports podcast New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce, Gronk remembered the moment he first met Brady when he was drafted as a rookie by the Patriots.
"I was in the training room getting my foot and ankles taped and he comes up and says 'hey, I'm Tom.' I was trying to play it cool, I'm just going to introduce myself, I'm not going to say I am a big fan or anything so I was like, 'Hi, I'm Rob, man. I know you're Tom, dude, we are in football gear and I am not meeting you somewhere else.'" Gronk said.
"A couple of years later, new rookies came in and he still did it to new rookies and I liked sitting there and watching their reactions and they were like, 'he's just introduced himself as Tom.'"
Gronk went on to detail how he managed to be so in tune with Brady on the field and admitted that they weren't actually on the same "wavelength" at first when they began playing together.
"Not the same wavelength at first. I thought he was out of control and I was like 'this dude is crazy,' I had never seen anyone like it," he said. "He was playing like a d*******. He was like a coach...I thought [the NFL] was like Any Given Sunday. That was how I lived my first couple of years in the NFL. The movie had tricked you. It wasn't anything like Any Given Sunday."
Gronk shared that Brady took complete charge of the offensive line when he was playing, even in practice.
"This guy is f****** yelling at me to get over there and he was yelling at me more like a coach. That took me a little bit to realize where it was coming from and what the love was for," he said.
"I kind of felt that he was more hard on me at first as I think he saw some talent in me and I think he saw the opportunity that I had presented in front of me and every single day, after practice, he would make me stay."
Gronk said Brady would work him to the bone during practice to make sure he and the other rookies on the team were at their best.
"[Brady] would be throwing pass after pass...and I would be running 10 routes with him after practice and he in the meetings he would be telling me, this is how I want you to run the route. I don't ever want you to run around the guy this way...if you run inside, guess what, I am never throwing you the ball. He was just always telling me where he wanted me to play," Gronk said.
"I had so much going on that I couldn't get it all down His speed was ridiculous when I first got there...but halfway through my rookie season it started to click and then going into my second year, I was ready for it."
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