but the Patriots dont pay, right?

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No, they don’t. If you could read between the lines, it’s in actuality a 4 year deal at under 5mil per year.

It’s a raise for Gronk, but not near even with what the top TE’s are getting.

Touchdown totals are very fickle, and when your QB throws for 5000 yards and 39 TDs, all the receivers’ individual stat lines are going to look amazing. But the guy has had one big year, and now Hernandez and especially Welker are going to be feeling the sting of this one.

I don’t know how they expect their key players to give it their all when they’re being treated like the kid in the ALLY Bank commercial (“I didn’t know I could have a REAL pony….”)

This is a gross overpayment and time will show Gronk to be highly overrated.

I’d rather have Hernandez.

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his hands are like two catcher mitts and hes 6’8. hes not overrated. His sure catching and blocking ability make him the better TE imo.

That’s a lot of money. (granted, he’s the best TE in football)

And I’m white so it’s not racial..Just look at their track record..

This is a gross overpayment and time will show Gronk to be highly overrated.

I’d rather have Hernandez.

@ homelanddefense says:
but the Patriots dont pay, right?

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And they didn’t.

$13.23M over 3 years? That is $4.41M, and the best player at his position in the NFL these past 2 years should be getting $5-6M at least. It was more than he was making ($1M over the next 2 seasons) but far less than he is worth.

In the end, it looks like the Patriots spent big money, but the details say that it was ax extremely team friendly deal.
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Patriots had all the leverage here. They paid much more than they had(they didn’t have to give him a raise at all) to up front in order to buy out his FA years(very similiar to baseball teams buying out FA years of younger players with arbitration years left)

It is astounding that they had the forethought to lock him up sooner (at less money) than trying to milk his low rookie contract for all its worth…which would no doubt end up costing them more in the long run. BB usually doesn’t do it…Mayo aside last year. More often than not, they get every ounce of value out of the rookie contracts, then play hardball.

Good job Pats and congrats to Gronk. Well deserved!

If he’s still playing at this level in a few years, he’ll still be young enough to command top dollar and he can just tell them to pay him or release him. It’s a great contract for a young player.