​Rewriting the piece originally published on NESN, and noting NESN as a preferred source, the idea remains that some players are the sort you end up talking about long after their careers are over. Rob Gronkowski, especially during his time with the New England Patriots, is one of those players. Even in July 2026, Tom Brady continues to sing Gronk’s praises. Brady recently appeared on the New Heights podcast, the show hosted by Travis and Jason Kelce, and Gronkowski’s name came up as expected. The Hall of Fame quarterback had plenty of kind words for him, and he dug deep into a facet of Gronk’s game that football people have long regarded as exceptional but perhaps hadn’t fully appreciated for its magnitude: his blocking.
“Gronk was really unique, you know, I think Gronk was the greatest blocking tight end in history,” Brady said on the New Heights podcast. “Gronk could handle defensive ends. He was at the point of attack in the run game… We didn’t care. We would rather go to Gronk than the open-side tackle. So that’s a really underrated part of his game.”
Gronkowski was a matchup nightmare as a receiver, yet his impact extended into the run game as well. It’s rare for tight ends to excel in both areas to this extent. Some of the best receiving tight ends aren’t known for their blocking, and when Gronk was assigned to block, he delivered in a way that simplified life for everyone else and even made life harder for Brady’s opponents.
“When we didn’t have Gronk, I — as a quarterback — for the first time in my career realized like ‘Oh, like we lose those matchups all of the time,’” Brady told the Kelce brothers. “Not only is that not neutral, it’s a loss, so now everything is to the open side, or you’re flashing the tight end back all of the time. And again, it just limits what you’re able to do.”
Gronkowski has often been viewed as a cheat code at the position, especially as a pass catcher. But that reputation extends to blocking as well, and Brady’s reflections underscore just how transformative Gronk was on the field.