In Rob Gronkowski’s way, he spent the majority of the 2019 season telling us everything we needed to know about why he wasn’t on the football field with the New England Patriots.
He used physical and mental descriptors like tired, beaten up, drained, joyless. And in between, he took jabs at Bill Belichick’s Patriot Way, occasionally expressing relief over his “retirement” from a mission-first, enjoyment-last existence. A kind of culture that achieved greatness, but also exacted a toll. By the time Gronkowski left the Patriots, very little of this was a secret. In fact, we have often celebrated Belichick’s single-minded and ruthless prioritization of winning.