NFL Trade Rumors: Patriots Called Teams About Rob Gronkowski Before Draft, But Kraft Calls That ‘Hogwash’
The NFL Draft is long over and teams are now beginning to move into full-on preparation for training camp, but a lot of the speculation is still swirling. There have been a great number of rumors regarding the New England Patriots and All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski, but he is still with the team and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Team owner Robert Kraft even went as far as to call all the rumors “hogwash,” but that still doesn’t change the fact that some calls were made.
According to the latest rumors going around on social media, the Patriots did explore trades involving Gronk in the days and weeks leading up the 2018 NFL Draft in April. Obviously, none of the trades materialized into anything and he is set to be the starting tight end for the Patriots when they begin the upcoming season.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk states that the phone calls and discussions made by the Patriots continued up until “three days before the draft.” Some of the rumors had the Pats looking to move up high into the first round and possibly going after a quarterback such as Baker Mayfield.
As everyone knows by now, Mayfield went number one overall to the Cleveland Browns.
While it's "hogwash" that Robert Kraft vetoed a Gronk trade, the Patriots were calling teams about a possible deal before the draft https://t.co/RRslESfHiV
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) June 13, 2018
As word of these rumors began making the rounds, some of those in the New England Patriots organization began to address them. Rob Gronkowski spoke with the Boston Herald and said that the reports of him being included in trade discussions are nothing but “fake news.”
It is true that Gronkowski has been looking to lock in a new contract with the Patriots, but that’s a story for another time. Some of the other rumors flying around had head coach Bill Belichick wanting to trade Gronk until quarterback Tom Brady threatening to retire if the trade happened.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft decided that enough was enough and he figured it was time to address the rumors, as reported by ESPN’s Mike Reiss.
“I guess when your team is good people are looking for things. I’ll just tell you it’s a bunch of hogwash that I vetoed some trade. That was never in the works. It’s just completely made up.”
“I think we have to be careful in society today that people can’t just come out and say things like this bit about us trading Gronk to the 49ers or Tennessee. There’s no basis to it and it gets a life of its own. I just want to go on record at today’s event to make sure that you all understand that there’s no truth that. People shouldn’t be able to do that.”
Rob Gronkowski has been in the NFL for nine seasons and he is far from finished even though he’s already a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame in the future. There is no doubt that virtually anyone and everyone can be on the trading block at some point or another, but the New England Patriots may be seen as insane if they were to ship him away now. Whether the rumors were “hogwash” or not, Gronk is still a member of the team and looks to be for the at least the coming season.
