SUPER BOWL XLVI
Patriots’ hopes hinge on Gronkowski’s wonky ankle
So many famous body parts will visit this plainspoken city on the plains during Super Bowl week. Madonna’s arms. Katy Perry’s vacant, staring eyes. Tim Tebow’s corporeal body.
And they all pale next to Rob Gronkowski’s ankle. The left one, mind. Nobody cares about the right one, because unlike the left one it is not sprained.
He did not practise again Wednesday.
And since Gronkowski is New England’s biggest weapon, literally and otherwise, his ankle has become the focus of the Super Bowl attention that would otherwise be spent calculating why Tom Brady is just so damned dreamy.
Instead, it’s all on the Gronk.
“I’m day-to-day, every single day,” says Gronkowski, good-naturedly.
You and the rest of us, pal. But unlike the rest of us, Gronkowski is the engine that makes the two-tightend Patriots offence go. He caught 90 passes for 1,327 yards and 17 touchdowns this season, setting records for receiving yards and touchdowns by a tight end. Along with multipurpose tight end Aaron Hernandez, Gronkowski is the fulcrum of this potentially revolutionary offence, where wide receivers are extras. If this is a rematch of Super Bowl XLII, Gronkowski is basically playing the part of Randy Moss.
Unless, of course, he can’t. And since he plays for the Patriots, the big galoot from Amherst, N.Y., has been forced to play the part of the prisoner of war, held by the media: name, rank, and uniform number. This has produced a fair amount of catand-mouse back-and-forth, if the cat were none too bright, and the mouse behind a thick pane of glass. Take, for instance, his interaction with entertainment personality Maria Menounos, here for the celebrity television show Extra, who got his attention in the crowded Media Day crowd by crooning, “Grooooooo-ooooonk.”
Menounos: “OK, a couple of questions. First and foremost, and most importantly, how are you feeling?”
Gronkowski: “I’m feeling good. We’re taking it day by day right now, whatever the training staff has to offer, whatever they have to offer to get to me to do, prepared, we’re getting better every single day, we’re moving in the right direction, we’re moving in a positive direction every single day, getting better every day, so when it comes down to Sunday I’m to the maximum point where I could be, where I’m feeling.”
The six-foot-six, 265-pound Gronkowski had been hammering away on these talking points for the better part of an hour, and at this stage of Media Day he was clearly worn down. Earlier, in response to the question, “Rob, what’s it like to know that you have the most talked-about body parts here?” he said, half-joking, “What parts are we talking about?” When asked if Patriots coach Bill Belichick had specifically given him instructions on what to say, Gronkowski replied, “Has he? No, I mean, basically (you) come out here, you can say what you have to say. We’re just out here having a good time, having a blast with the media.”
He will make a poor White House press secretary, but he can be a hell of a tight end, if healthy. So every step is scrutinized for a limp — one was detected Tuesday, and it was still there Wednesday. And, by the way, Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora said Tuesday that when he missed four games with a high ankle sprain earlier this season, he could not have played in a mere two weeks. “That’ll be rough,” he said.
So with the chase for actual information more or less futile, the celebrity reporters zeroed in on the important issues.
Menounos: “Can you name one movie that’s nominated for an Oscar right now?”
Gronkowski: “The movie with Mark Wahlberg in it that’s out.”
Menounos: “Contagion? No.” Reporter: “Contraband.” Gronkowski: “Contraband. Yeah, I saw that.”
Menounos: “No. What about . . . ”
Gronkowski: “Oh, I know one, Moneyball.”
He couldn’t name all three Kardashian sisters, but Menounos didn’t judge him, signing off on an encouraging note.
Menounos: “Good luck! Crush them. Crush them. I will be on the field celebrating with you guys . . . There is a bet right now that if you guys lose, which isn’t going to happen, I have to wear a Giants bikini to host the show, which I will not be wearing. And if you guys win, which you will, my correspondent in New York, A.J., will be wearing a Patriots cheerleader’s uniform to host the show in New York.
Gronkowski: “Wow. So there’s a positive if we lose.”
The Super Bowl is a silly place, and Rob Gronkowski has become at the focus of the silly. He really does seem like a nice kid, if in a bit of a Belichickian straitjacket at the moment. When another celebrity TV show got the singer Ciara to sing him the first verse of a Madonna song to see if he could complete the couplet, and she went with Like A Virgin to the 22-year-old who was pictured shirtless with a porn star wearing his jersey on Twitter earlier this season, he said, “Aw, nah, I don’t know.”
But it’s going to get serious, eventually. And in a game where the Giants defensive line will attempt to replicate the damage done in Super Bowl XLII, taking seconds and space and breath away from Tom Brady, he will need all his weapons — his reliable target and his escape hatches, his big-play guys and his safety valves. He will need a healthy Gronk.