How Rob Gronkowski Hilariously Tricked Tampa Bay’s Workout Staff

Rob Gronkowski with Patriots in 2017
Rob Gronkowski with the Patriots in 2017. Photo by Stephen Lew/CSM/REX/Shutterstock (9065478cs)

The longer one follows the NFL and its athletes, the longer one realizes that there’s so much more to them than meets the eye. In fact, some of the players are downright jokesters—Rob Gronkowski, to be exact.

The star tight end is known best for his time with the New England Patriots, but after he joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he engaged in a clever scheme to get out of doing extra workouts.

During the 2020 season when everyone was forced to quarantine themselves, Tampa Bay strength and conditioning coach Anthony Piroli had assigned the players a strict regiment of workouts. He then tasked them with sending personal videos of themselves working out at home, to prove that they had actually done it.

Gronkowski, however, figured out a scheme to get out of these workouts, as he recently explained in a Fox interview:

“I started tricking him. I would bring my shirt out, and then I would bring another shirt out, so when I’m running the sprints, I would film myself, like, 15 times for that session. But I would run it in a couple of different shirts because you only had to send in two or three reps. So when the next time came, I didn’t have to film myself because I already filmed myself running in a different shirt every time on that one day.”

Apparently, they completely bought his scheme and didn’t notice anything. However, considering the fact that he had an excellent season for them, we doubt they’re that upset after the fact.

Eitan is a songwriter, Lakers fan, and second-place winner at a Harry Potter trivia night. He enjoys writing about travel, sports, food, and geek culture.