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TE Rob Gronkowski (1 Viewer)
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Run It Up
Footballguy
I was actually gonna start a thread on this in regards to the state of the game when it comes to this new breed of TE (Gonzo/Gates,) that is taking over the league.
It seems to be that the opinion is, for players like Gronk, Graham and Julius that if you can't stop them that it is alright to aim for those season ending hits. Denver sports radio host lays it out there, to paraphrase here, that basically if you can't stop these guys your options are to let them ball on you or you dig in and try to hurt them - not out of malice but simply because its the only way you can stop them. Basically praying that the level of pain you deliver is such that if you don't get that dirty hit in that the cumulative effect removes them from the equation by the time you potentially meet them again in the post season.
Imo, this view is ####### lazy. Teams need to start investing in hybrid physical LBs and DBs. Playing to injure them simply because they are balling on you so hard is disgusting. We saw it two weeks ago with Ward headhunting Gronk - again. We've seen it literally every week since Graham hurt his shoulder, hes been blown up on more plays this year, absolutely nowhere near the football, just cause. Its pathetic.
I will say however, that the attitude Gronk brings to the field, getting really physical with defenders who try to bump him or get in late/low hits is the correct response. Be physically imposing, don't worry about the flag and make them scared of you. You want them to make that career decision, as opposed to forcing the decision on you.
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Ghost Rider
Footballguy
I agree in spirit, but I blame the NFL for players going low like that; they've given them no other alternative. Just about any hit high at all gets flagged now, even if you don't lead with or hit the helmet, so players are forced to go low to avoid getting flagged.
Banger
Footballguy
Green and Gold
Footballguy
Maybe he should have been more worried about giving up 200+ yards and 4 TDs on the ground.
Banger
Footballguy
but hey Gronk only had one catch the few times he covered him so he did his job!!
Concept Coop
Footballguy
I know this is the wrong forum--but what can the NFL do? It's a violent sport and they have to protect the head; at the expense of knees if needed.
Synthesizer
Footballguy
Less padding = more arm tackling. Force defenders to wrap up rather than torpedo to the head or knees?
Synthesizer
Footballguy
There have been some studies that show that helmets and additional padding actually make the situation worse because it encourages the participants to use more force.
32 Counter Pass
Footballguy
I agree to a certain degree this is just a natural part of the game. However, I also believe that if the game was played on natural grass with a little longer grass it would slow the players down, which would lessen the impact of the collisions leading to a decline in injuries. Even more dramatic would be watered down natural grass.Concept Coop said:
Since we are now off on a tangent, I would love to see a team play every game on a mud field. Talk about a home field advantage!!
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There is a very real phenomenon known as risk compensation whereby any surplus gains to safety from technological innovation, rather than being banked, wind up getting consumed by new, riskier behaviors. For instance, if you start fitting vehicles with Anti-Lock Brakes, drivers become more confident in their brakes and will therefore start following cars more closely than they previously would have felt comfortable with, wiping out much of the safety gains.
Similarly, by loading players up with all that padding, they are encouraged to engage in riskier and more reckless behaviors. If no pads were allowed, I guarantee you we'd see fewer safeties "lowering the boom" on defenseless wide receivers at full speed. Would these gains be enough to offset the loss of the padding? I don't know, but maybe. Rugby seems to get by just fine without it.
Rhythmdoctor
Footballguy
I disagree. Take away the helmets (like in rugby) and you will instantly reduce concussions by a LARGE margin.
As does soccer. That said, most of us played tackle football without pads when younger and I never recall anyone getting seriously hurt.
Kool-Aid Larry
Footballguy
Kool-Aid Larry
Footballguy
Banger
Footballguy
The General
Footballguy
Not smashing right now.
ConnSKINS26
Footballguy
9.2 for me through one half, not a monster game but he's well on his way to 18-20 points.
Jimbo Slice
Footballguy
It always seems as if he does nothing for long spells then like 2 drives hell get 10/160/2. Its like there's designated gronk drives in the playbook.
The General
Footballguy
62 yards in the first half. Over a full season, that would pro-rate to nearly 2,000 receiving yards.
Kool-Aid Larry
Footballguy
ConnSKINS26
Footballguy
SameSongNDance
Footballguy
Quarless isn't even the 2nd best TE on his own team. 
Gvindy
Footballguy
I'm expecting 150/2 from Quarless, should be an epic battle.
VikingFrog
Footballguy
Kool-Aid Larry
Footballguy
With Miami/NYJ still pending, Rob Gronkowski's 98 receiving yards are currently the 4th-highest total by a tight end this week. This is only notable because this is the first time since week 4 that Gronkowski has ranked lower than 3rd at the position in receiving yards (outside of his bye week, natch).
Over the last 9 weeks (8 games), no other tight end comes within 10 catches or 200 yards of Gronkowski's totals. In fact, over that span Gronkowski has posted 52 catches for 763 yards. Jimmy Graham and Julius Thomas combined have 59 catches for 596 yards.
Over the last 9 weeks (8 games), no other tight end comes within 10 catches or 200 yards of Gronkowski's totals. In fact, over that span Gronkowski has posted 52 catches for 763 yards. Jimmy Graham and Julius Thomas combined have 59 catches for 596 yards.
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
To be fair, Graham and Thomas both lost their "healthy" skill in this time period.
Now consider that so far this season, there have been eight games in which a TE caught 6+ balls for 100+ yards and at least one TD.
Your usual top-tier suspects accounted for five of these games: Graham, Thomas, Gates, Walker, and Heath. The other three such games were put up by Gronk, Gronk and, oh yeah, Gronk.
It's ridiculous almost to the point of unfair that the same guy can simultaneously have the highest floor and the highest ceiling at his position.
msudaisy26
Footballguy
It plays both ways though, for the last couple of years everyone told us how much better Graham was and some even said Thomas because they were healthier and in your lineup more often.wdcrob said:
Kool-Aid Larry
Footballguy
It's actually the 3rd game in the last two years where Graham has failed to notch a reception. The Aqib Talib game against New England last year, the Detroit game earlier this year where he played 30 snaps and got two targets, and then this week against Pittsburgh when Brees just forgot about him.
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
Career #s:
Gronk 75.8 yds per game, .82 TDs per game
Graham 61.3 yds per game, .68 TDs per game
Gronk 75.8 yds per game, .82 TDs per game
Graham 61.3 yds per game, .68 TDs per game
Kool-Aid Larry
Footballguy
Ted Lange as your Bartender
Footballguy
32 Counter Pass
Footballguy
Synthesizer
Footballguy
In his defense, some guys do play with a style that leaves them more open to injury. Gronk routinely drags a few defenders while other defenders are piling on. It will lead to him getting hurt again. And that's ok, it's one of the things that makes him a stud. He's so much better than everyone else at the position that you just roll with it until an injury happens again.
At the edges, I have no problem with the "health is a skill" concept. A guy like Danario Alexander or Sean Lee or Bob Sanders or Darren McFadden have shown that they do not have enough of the "health skill" to really be counted on at the NFL level- as evidenced by the fact that they can't even play a dozen consecutive games. Bob Sanders was a 2-time first team AP All Pro who lasted 8 years in the NFL, and at no point in his career did he string together more than 14 consecutive games before missing time with injury. Through the first six years of his career, McFadden's longest streak was 12 games, and that requires wrapping around an offseason (he played the final 8 games of 2009 and the first four games of 2010 before getting hurt again). His coaching staff has dropped him to 10 carries per game, and he's now on a personal-best 14-game streak. That's what a player looks like when he lacks the "healthy skill".
The problem is that these guys represent the very tail of the NFL distribution. They're massive outliers. Typically players who can't stay healthy will be weeded out by the intensive selection process long before they ever reach the NFL. They'll get hurt in high school and fail to get a scholarship. Or they'll get hurt in college and fail to get drafted. Or they'll get hurt in camps or their first season and quickly wash out of the league. For 99% of NFL players, they've already demonstrated they have enough of the "health skill", and differences in injury history are largely just differences in luck and random chance.
Take Gronk. People call him "injury prone", but he played 46 consecutive games to open his career. That may not seem like much, but that's a huge streak. Calvin Johnson has never played in 46 consecutive games, (his record is 37, stretching from week 1 of 2011 to week 4 of 2013, with one playoff game thrown in). This isn't to say that Calvin is injury prone, it's to point out just how common little nicks and dings and minor injuries really are in the NFL. Gronkowski broke his arm, which is pretty much the definition of a "dumb luck" injury. He got multiple surgical infections, which is a known complication of surgery and again just a "dumb luck" thing rather than a "predisposition" thing. He tore his ACL, which happens to 3% of NFL athletes in any given year (with 70-75% of those tears occurring without any contact). He's had lingering back injuries, which are a genuine "predisposition"-type concern, but the rest of it is just dumb luck.
And the people who were downgrading Gronk were dropping him behind TEs with every bit as extensive of injury histories. Jordan Cameron had missed time in each of the past two seasons to concussions, (and now he's made it three for three). Jimmy Graham had plantar fascia problems last year and a wrist injury in 2012 that required surgery after the season. Julius Thomas missed pretty much his entire first two seasons to an ankle injury, but of course that happened before he was fantasy relevant so it didn't really count. (I believe it's the same ankle that's bothering him now, though I'm not 100% on that.)
So it's not really a surprise that, of all the so-called "elite" tight ends before the season, Rob Gronkowski is the only one who has managed to remain healthy. It's not like he was more likely to, but he wasn't any less likely to, either. It's all dumb luck. This year, Gronk has been the lucky one. In the past, he's been the unlucky one. He's not any more likely to get injured going forward, but he's not any less likely to, either. These are all NFL players. All NFL players are injury risks. But Gronkowski is not a disproportionate injury risk. And if he gets unlucky again in the future, at least we have a massive pile of evidence telling us that he is an absolutely freakish, mutant-level healer who has smashed the recovery timetable on his return from every injury and returned even more dominant than he was before he got hurt.
I feel like I've said this before, but I'd imagine it carries a bit more weight when Gronkowski is the only elite TE who is healthy than it did when Gronk was the only elite TE who was hurt.
