Rob Gronkowski isn't the only one with some questions about about the offensive pass interference calls that have gone against him.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick has made made his feelings known on the matter, and on Tuesday offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels had an opportunity to discuss what the game's best tight end can do to avoid being flagged for interference.
"[The calls] are what they are," McDaniels said on a conference call with reporters. "We have to play within the rules. I think the best thing we can do is try to coach Rob based on the way that we've been told that we can play. Rob very rarely, if ever, extends his arms. We try to make sure we don't do that. I think we try to make sure that we're not the one that's pushing or shoving or trying to move the defender in any way that's illegal."
McDaniels explained that, as far as he can tell, sometimes Gronkowski's 6-foot-6, 260-pound frame works against him in the eyes of officials.
"I think a lot of times the contact is initiated, and the question is who's initiating it? We're fortunate to have a guy that's a big athlete, bigger than the guys that are covering him," McDaniels said. "At times, I think that sometimes we feel the contact is made, and because the other guy takes the brunt of it sometimes, we ended up getting called for it.
"I think Rob's trying to play within the rules 100 percent of the time. We're never trying to do something that would create penalties, and we're certainly going to try to do whatever we can to eliminate those penalties going forward."
Gronkowski was flagged for offensive pass interference twice in Sunday's loss to the Broncos. One was negated by a Broncos penalty, while the other wiped away a fourth-quarter third-down conversion. Both calls appeared to be questionable at best.
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"They certainly come at big times in the game and they affected a couple drives the other night," McDaniels said. "We'll do everything we can to try to clean that up and help Rob -- and anybody else for that matter because we've been called for a few other ones along the way too -- to try to avoid those things coming up again."