Tom Brady reportedly pitched himself and Rob Gronkowski as a combo deal to his potential suitors in free agency
- Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski have reunited for a second act with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
- The deal came together quickly on Tuesday, with Gronkowski coming out of retirement to join his former quarterback after the Patriots traded him to Tampa Bay in exchange for a fourth-round pick.
- According to NFL insider Ian Rapaport, Brady had been pitching a reunion with Gronkowski while testing the waters of free agency.
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Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski will take the field together again in the coming NFL season, but they'll be wearing new jerseys.
After Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in one of the biggest moves of the start of the NFL offseason, news broke on Tuesday that Gronkowski was coming out of retirement to join his former quarterback in Florida.
The move came with a few complications — the Buccaneers had to trade a fourth-round pick to the Patriots to acquire the rights to the tight end, and Gronkowski still holds the WWE 24/7 Championship, which he will likely have to drop soon.
But even with a few hoops to jump through, the deal came together with impressive speed. According to one NFL insider, that might have been the plan all along.
Speaking with WEEI's "The Greg Hill Morning Show" on Wednesday, NFL Network's Ian Rapaport said that a potential reunion with Gronkowski had been in the works since Brady began testing the waters of free agency.
"As soon as Brady went to Tampa, I started hearing rumors about this, and I know I wasn't alone," Rapoport said. "He told people during the process, teams in the process who were actually interested in offers that he wanted to bring Gronk with him. That much I knew. But that was a third of the story because Gronk still needed to actually want to come back and be ready to come back, and the Patriots had to deal him. So there were so many things that had to happen."
While Rapaport made clear that his understanding was that Gronkowski's return was never a sure thing, by the sound of it, Brady had a good feeling he could convince his trusted tight end to come back in the right opportunity emerged.
"I don't know if he said, 'I just spoke to Gronk, and he wants to come back.' But I do believe it was something that was brought up in discussions with teams, with Bruce Arians, Jason Licht, with the Chargers people. I never got the sense it was like, alright, this is in the bag we're both coming back," Rapoport said. "It was more like, 'Here is what I want to do. If this is something you guys want to do let's explore.'"
With Gronkowski now on the roster alongside wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, as well as tight end O.J. Howard, Brady has an impressive set of weapons to make use of when he takes over the Tampa Bay offense.
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