Rodney Harrison is Convinced Gronk Will Unretire

Source – Former Patriots safety and current NBC analyst Rodney Harrison joined Ordway, Merloni & Fauria on Tuesday to discuss being named to the Patriots Hall of Fame, and within the interview he touched on another future Patriots Hall of Famer — Rob Gronkowski.

Harrison believes Gronkowski will return to the NFL next season.

“Will he be back? I believe that he will,” Harrison said. “I believe in the second half of the season he’s going to get antsy. Right now, it’s summer time and you’re hot and everybody is on you. But, I think when you sit back and you actually start missing football and you look up and say, ‘My body feels pretty good.’ I think he’ll be back. I think there’s a possibility.

“But also people thought I was crazy when I said last year I would sign Rob and I would sit him the first month, month and a half of the season, maybe the first couple of months and just let him play the second half of the season, the latter part of the season to keep him healthy and fresh.”

This business about Rob Gronkowski’s future is going to be the most FAQ of the summer of 2019. And right now his eventual unretirement is doing better in the polls than Joe Biden.

Willie McGinest predicted it even before Gronk announced his retirement. Tom Brady made this comment:

Julian Edelman and Gronk did a promo for the NFL Draft where Minitron said “I think you’re coming back!” Drew Rosenhaus said he “wouldn’t be shocked if he came back to play a few games.” And now we can add Rodney Harrison.

So let’s consider the sources and try to determine if these are just wild hot takez pulled randomly out of the asscracks of nobodies. McGinest is the guy who introduced Brady and Gronk to the Pliability Guru and has a lifetime pass to come around the team any time he wants. Brady is Gronk’s soul mate. Edelman is the Han to his Chewie. Rosenhaus is his paid representative. And Harrison is not only the best football analyst on the highest rated network TV show, he’s now in the team Hall of Fame. And probably has a key card for Belichick’s office. Insiders don’t come any more insidery than these guys. And they are unanimous in either joking about his return or flat out predicting it.

Jason Witten unretired after one full year, leaving one of the best broadcasting gigs in the business and nobody batted an eye. The Pats didn’t draft a tight end. They picked up Austin Seferian-Jenkins, and that’s it. They traded Jacob Hollister for an Amazon gift card. So not only is everyone open to the idea, the team is acting like he’ll back.

I was putting the chances he’ll be back in midseason at about 50/50. But Harrison is so unequivocal and convinced it’s happening I’m moving that to like 60/40. And if we get a few more former Patriots legends with insider access saying it, I’m just going to keep moving that needle.