Sometimes, the celestial bodies align just so. Or maybe it’s true that I’ve been blessed from the heavens above and have an almighty power, which is unfortunate because, as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility.
Mere moments after I posted my latest value mining effort and wrote many kind words about Rob Housler, a troubling Rob Gronkowski item bounced across my computer screen.
Remember those cheery times Monday morning when I told you that right now even in April, Rob Gronkowski comes with at least slight fantasy risk? No, you probably tried to block that from you memory entirely.
Well, maybe you should continue with that now, because there’s hope Gronk will be just fine.
Whenever my calender still says April and there’s a serious NFL injury, that’s bad (#analysis).
A year ago we experienced this on what at the time seemed like a more minor level when Eagles tackle Jason Peters went down. We knew that meant horrifying fantasy football things for Michael Vick, but it was difficult to determine exactly how damaging Peters’ absence would be.
When the answer was only 10 starts, well, that sucked.
But now here in early April we have a much more direct injury with potentially significant fantasy implications to one Rob Gronkowski. Or as he’s also known: the best fantasy tight end ever.
The New England Patriots may be without Rob Gronkowski for their season opener if he requires another surgery to his forearm to clear up an infection, according to a report in the Boston Herald.
Gronkowski, who originally underwent surgery in November after breaking his left forearm, had a second surgery after re-injuring the arm in the playoff loss to the Ravens. Recently though, he has reportedly been dealing with an infection in an area where a second metal plate was placed to repair the arm.
Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who spent Super Bowl week in full party mode, was spotted at Universial Studios this week wearing a tank top that basically sums up his true feelings about his actions in New Orleans.
Rob Gronkowski may have relatively brittle forearms, but he seems like a decent cat. He likes to smash home runs, rock Zubaz (the ’80′s will never die!), and he has championship level body-shot technique.
He’s also a pretty thirsty guy.
Thirsty enough that he’d drop a hundred bucks on a glass a lemonade.
And as he was leaving the CBS section of Radio Row, he ran into a small child selling lemonade. The kid asked him to purchase a drink and he did just that, except he paid a little more than the drink actually costs, handing the kid a $100 bill.
This is may be a delightful gesture, but Gronk should beware. This young ‘ade peddler could be an Indianapolis Colts fan. A tiny, bitter fan whose hell bent on destroying the New England Patriots one-by-one. Or he’s just a cute kid selling lemonade.
He’s one of those two things.
Photo via CBS Sports
After only a handful of snaps, Rob Gronkowski’s forearm snapped — again. He was done for the game against the Texans, and four days later, done for the year after being put on injured reserve.
Typically, when a star tight end goes out due to injury, it’s a crushing blow to his team’s offense because of the sheer amount of production that must be replaced. But that’s not the case with the Patriots, who are the modern day masters at adjusting on the fly and working with the pieces they have on the field.
The offense has spread the football around more to the running backs in the absence of Gronkowski, who missed five games in the regular season (weeks 12-16), while also replying more heavily on H-back Aaron Hernandez to pick up the slack.
Hernandez’s role in the offense has been affected not only by an increase in targets, but in his alignments as well. With Gronkowski on the field, the two tight ends are part of what I like to call a master formation. What this means is that the two tight ends are versatile enough to allow the Patriots to stay with one personnel grouping and run all sorts of concepts. At times, they’re able to run the ball effectively, as they can to pass it with these formations because of how well-rounded of an athlete Gronkowski is.
He is able to line up as a traditional tight end — in football parlance, “Y” is the given name — at the end of the formation and block defensive ends and linebackers like an offensive tackle due to his quick feet and hulking strength. And from the same alignment, he can threaten defensive backs down the seam with above-average speed and great size, which are a dangerous combination, and they’re attributes that create mismatches for defenses.
With Gronkowski in the game, Hernandez is given more freedom as a receiver because he is able to line up all over the formation and be a mismatch against smaller defensive backs or slower linebackers. Frequently, he’ll line up detached from the formation in a flex alignment (generally a three to four-yard split from LOS), or at times, in the backfield where the Patriots know he’ll be facing man coverage from an inside linebacker, who tends to be one of the slower pass defenders.
Moreover, the combination (12 personnel) is very troublesome for defenses because it forces them to either play with their base defense, which leads to them getting beat in the passing game, or go to their sub-packages, which leads them to getting beat in the running game. And when worst comes to worst, they try to go to those sub-packages and the Patriots simply go to their no-huddle offense to eliminate substitutions.
But with Gronkowski out, the master formation is different.
