primetime
Pro Bowl Player
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2005
- Messages
- 13,627
- Reaction score
- 15,375
Those are two different people with different injury histories. Other than being elite TE talent, there's not much to compare the two. Gronk was clearly slowing down the last two years before he retired. The Pats knew the end was coming with Gronk sooner rather than later, did nothing other than bring in some veteran warm bodies to try to replace him and failed.
Comparing Kelce and Gonk pure on their age, skill level and position ignores way too many variables.
That's not what I was doing. What I was saying is that you don't expect an historical talent to retire before his 30th birthday. Consider the Patriots acquired Randy Moss when he was older than Gronk was when he retired. You expect those blue chippers to last a long time, and Gronk's star burned out prematurely, which exacerbates the issue.