Former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski will retire during the 2022 offseason, he announced on Instagram on Tuesday.
Gronk will surely find his way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and he is widely considered one of the best tight ends in the history of the NFL. In his final NFL season, he finished with 55 catches for 802 yards and six touchdowns. Because he’s retiring at the young age of 33 years old, he didn’t have the most prolific career. In his prime, he was truly dominant.
“I want to thank the whole entire first class Buccaneers organization for an amazing ride, trusting me to come back to play and help build a championship team,” Gronkowski wrote on Instagram.
“I will now be going back into my retirement home, walking away from football again with my head held high knowing I gave it everything I had, good or bad, every time I stepped out on the field.
“The friendships and relationships I have made will last forever, and I appreciate every single one of my teammates and coaches for giving everything they had as well. From retirement, back to football and winning another championship and now back to chilling out, thank you to all.”
Breaking: Rob Gronkowski tells me he’s retiring.
The future first ballot Hall of Famer won four Super Bowls while earning a spot on the NFL’s 100th Anniversary Team and 2010s All-Decade Team.
An all-time great officially hangs em up at 33 years old.
— Jordan Schultz (@Schultz_Report) June 21, 2022
The former 2010 second-round pick is a four-time Super Bowl champion and a five-time Pro Bowler. He played for the Patriots from 2010 to 2018. He was briefly retired in 2019, but returned to play for the Buccaneers for two seasons.
“In college, I was asked to write about a dream job opportunity that I wanted to pursue and where the location would be,” Gronkowski wrote on Instagram.
“Every time I had to write about my future, no matter what, I picked being a professional football player. For that assignment though, we had to pick the location. So I wrote that I wanted to play in Tampa for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for many reasons, the sunny weather being #1. I completely forgot about writing this report until 2 years ago when I had the opportunity to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And let me tell ya, the journey in Tampa over the last 2 years has blown away what I originally wrote about in college, big time.”
