By Tom E. Curran
FOXBORO - The questions are posed the protective umbrella of "it's what people are talking about..."
As if it makes them any less vacuous. Questions about a teammate photographed jumping from a rock into water. Questions about whether a coach said stop being silly. Repeated questions about an ankle that, for two days, Rob Gronkowski sprinted all over Gillette Stadium practice field on.
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These are the questions posed to a tight end who is coming off the most statistically enormous season a tight end has ever had.
The question, "How do you top 2011?" wasn't posed to Rob Gronkowski in the midst of a media scrum on Friday until one reporter had asked three times if he was worried about his ankle then asked if he was disappointed he was injured in the Super Bowl. Then the reporter asked Gronk about a picture of Tom Brady jumping into the water from a rock and, of course, whether Gronk would do the same.
By the time a couple of football questions bumped into his crew-cutted cranium, Gronk was pretty much ready to shut it down.
A little more germane to the proceedings was how a guy who had 90 catches for 1,327 yards and a single-season record for tight ends with 17 touchdown catches might top that.
As they say, if you're not getting better, you're getting worse. So how, I asked Gronkowski, can he be better than that?
"I really don't look at those numbers at all," he insisted. "Those numbers were last year, we're going into another season. If I don't get any of those numbers and we're winning games, that's all I care about is getting a win. When it comes down to me, when I need to get open, it's up to me to get open. I'm not looking at numbers at all. If it comes to me blocking more and getting the running backs (more space), then I'm working on doing a good job there. As long as we're winning, that's what's important."
From the outset of training camp last year, Gronk was impossible to cover. Man against boys stuff. And while the Patriots secondary was not exactly stingy, it was jaw-dropping. And it continued all season.
Has it somehow been easier than he thought?
"No. Definitely not," he stated. "The competition is crazy."
But what matchup does he find out there that he feels limited by?
"It's just the overall offense," Gronkowski offered. "With Brady at quarterback, the offensive line doing a great job overall, with our wide receivers out there, all I have to do is listen to my coaches and do my job and get open. With the players out there, you can't just focus on one guy. That's been the case, us as a team working together and that's what we have to do in camp, just keep working together. Every practice, every preseason game, into the regular season."
And the time squish he's seemingly been in? The pulls on him as he becomes a "celebrity athlete?"
"I'm in football camp now. That's all I'm worried about. Football, football, football. When I hit camp, I'm all camp. 24-7," came the reply.