Tony Gonzalez is retired. Really. Probably.
Gonzalez, the future Hall of Fame tight end who now works as an analyst for CBS, said today that he got feelers from NFL teams that hoped to persuade him to come out of retirement in 2014. But Gonzalez said he has lost weight and doesn’t think he’s physically capable of playing in the NFL anymore.
“Some teams reached out to me. A couple teams. I’m not going to name who they were,” Gonzalez said. “I’m about 230 pounds now. I’m afraid I would get crushed out on the football field now.”
Gonzalez says he didn’t miss football this season, even though there was a game he attended in Atlanta when he briefly wished he could be out there with his teammates.
“No, not at all. The second game of the season, for Thursday Night Football, we did Atlanta against Tampa Bay and that was my first time back at the dome,” Gonzalez said. “Even then, I’m talking like a 2 percent urge to get out there.”
So what if one of the teams that wins on Sunday suffers an injury at tight end and calls Gonzalez (who is a free agent eligible to sign with any team) to see if he would be willing to play in the Super Bowl?
“If I can be like the third-string tight end, yeah,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez was laughing when he said that, and didn’t sound like he really would entertain such an offer. Still, if the Patriots beat the Colts but lose Rob Gronkowski to an injury in the process, it wouldn’t hurt to give Gonzalez a call.