Rob Gronkowski’s criticisms of Chiefs are same nonsense his Patriots once heard
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Rob Gronkowski criticized Chiefs for sideline blame during season-opening loss.
- Gronkowski urged unity under pressure, citing finger-pointing as harmful conduct.
- Critics noted Brady, Gronkowski’s former teammate, displayed similar behavior in 2022.
Rob Gronkowski apparently has a terrible memory.
Gronkowski, the former Patriots and Buccaneers tight end, was on the “Up & Adams” show earlier this week and was asked about the Chiefs’ season-opening loss to the Chargers.
“What I was surprised about is when things aren’t going their way, as you can see, when they start struggling a little bit, they start yelling at each other, their blame game starts going on the sidelines, and that’s not a good situation,” Gronkowski said. “I mean, you want to come together when you’re down, when things aren’t going your way, you want to come together to figure out why everything’s not going the way it needs to go. So seeing them starting to point fingers is not a good sign.
“They gotta get incorporated on and get on the same page and not be blaming others.”
One can’t help but wonder if Gronkowski felt the same way about former teammate Tom Brady.
During a 2022 game, TV cameras caught Brady drop a couple of f-bombs when screaming at his Buccaneers teammates, and it generated headlines.
“You are so much better than the way you’re ... playing!” Brady yelled at the offensive linemen. “You get your .... ass kicked!”
That was a year after Gronkowski retired for good from the NFL, so maybe he was unaware of this incident.
But Gronkowski was with the Patriots in 2018 when Brady was caught screaming at his teammates, “Do your job!”
And in 2017, Brady unloaded on Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniel.
The point isn’t to shine a spotlight on Brady’s faults. It’s to note that things sometimes get heated on an NFL sideline, and what happened in the Chiefs game is exactly what a seven-time Super Bowl champion like Brady did when he played.
Can’t take a punch
The other ludicrous statement from Gronkowski about the Chiefs was their inability to deal with adversity.
“I feel like a lot of teams last year had that fear, ‘Oh, I can’t swing on the Chiefs,’” Gronkowski said of KC’s opponents. “’We, can’t give them our best shot, because they’re so well known.’ And everyone is talking about them. So the Philadelphia Eagles punched them in the face. The Chiefs didn’t know how to react to that, because no one else was doing that.
“Well, going into this year now, the Los Angeles Chargers punched them in the face. The Chiefs were like, ‘Whoa, they’re coming at us. How do we react?’ Well, they didn’t know how to react because no one was doing that before. So the Philadelphia Eagles opened that floodgate of ‘Hey, if you punch these guys in the face, you take it to him, you come out swinging, they’re gonna fall, and they’re not gonna be the team that you’ve been seeing all last year.’”
Again, Gronkowski’s memory seems spotty.
Just look back to Sept. 29, 2014. The Chiefs crushed the Patriots that night, winning 41-14 at Arrowhead Stadium. Brady was benched after the Chiefs smacked him down.
The Patriots’ record fell to 2-2 and sportswriters rushed to write the Patriots’ obituary. ESPN has a nice recap of the negativity after that game, including this Boston Globe headline, “For Tom Brady, the endgame has become apparent.”
But after being knocked down by the Chiefs, Brady and the Patriots would end up winning the Super Bowl that season. That started a stretch in which New England won three Lombardi Trophies in a five-season span.
So perhaps it’s wise to take Gronkowski’s analysis of the Chiefs with a grain of salt.
This story was originally published September 12, 2025 at 9:02 AM.
