Folks seem to think that we would add a player to take Gronkowski's role in some manner. That is NOT the question. We have Fells and Solder as backup TE's. Hooman is fine as one of the 2 starting TE's.
It is questionable whether we would add a player and then have him inactive. We COULD do this if there was a player we wanted to add for 2013, but we could simply sign such a player to future contract.
Also, any player expected to contribute would have to have been part of the patriots organization,
So, we are left with signing Gaffney (why bother?), or one of the Practice Squad players. IMHO, I could see Tarpinian being active over Forston.