Broadcaster Skip Bayless has made a bold claim about the future of tight end Rob Gronkowski following an announcement from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

For the second time in his career, the former New England Patriot and Tampa Bay Buccaneer announced last month that he was hanging up his cleats and retiring from the game, doing so as arguably one of the best tight-ends to ever play the position. 

With 107 touchdowns and 10,675 receiving yards since entering the NFL in the 2010 draft and in a career that has seen him named First-team All-Pro four times and winning four Super Bowl titles (three with the Patriots and one with the Buccaneers), there aren’t many who played the position that have done it as well as he did. 

But with injuries taking their toll, and with plenty of media opportunities likely to await him as a result of his energetic character, it sounds as if this retirement might be one that sticks.

Next man up

Even though he hasn’t been as productive with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as he was in New England, with 16 touchdowns across the regular and postseason during his two years there, there’s no doubt that Gronkowski is still an important part of the team’s offence and replacing him will be hard.

The Buccaneers have though taken steps to try and do just that though, taking both Cade Otton and Ko Kieft in the 2022 NFL Draft and yesterday acquired the services of former Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants tight end Kyle Rudolph. Rudolph has plenty of experience in the league having entered the year after Gronkowski and has put up 4,899 yards and 51 touchdowns across the regular and postseason:

So it looks as if they might be set at the position. But Skip Bayless doesn’t think that the tight end room is set just yet. 

What’s he said?

Taking to Twitter, Bayless believed that just because the Buccaneers are doing all they can to replace Gronkowski, he still thinks the 33-year-old will still play a part in the team this season:

The speculation on whether Gronkowski would come back has been going on pretty much since the day after he announced his second retirement. Afterall, he did it once, so it’s likely that he’ll do the same again. 

We’ll just have to wait and see, but we might be waiting for quite a long time to do that.