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That’s certainly one way to pass the time during a team meeting.
Rob Gronkowski all but confirmed a salacious rumor mentioned to him by former Titans offensive lineman Taylor Lewan that late teammate Aaron Hernandez used to masturbate during team meetings.
“We heard stories about him being in the team meeting room like beating off and like doing crazy s–t,” Lewan said during the latest “Bussin’ with The Boys” podcast.
“Possibly,” Gronkowski said with a slight laugh. “That’s a possibility that one.”
The second part of Gronkowski’s aforementioned answer made him chuckle even more before he essentially confirmed the validity.
“I may or may not have seen it live,” the former tight end said. “I’m not going to confirm nor deny, but I love crazy s–t, though. I didn’t mind things like that. I was like, ‘Wow, that was pretty epic.’ I was a wild man myself. Nothing fazed me. I encouraged it.”
Gronkowski and Hernandez played together for the Patriots from 2010-12, forming one of the greatest tight end duos in NFL history.
Their tag team split due to Hernandez’s legal issue, with the former Florida star being arrested and later found guilty of first-degree murder and weapons charges.
He received a sentence of life in prison without parole and died by suicide in April 2017.
Gronkowski said there was a lot of “craziness,” which he didn’t mind, although he didn’t “see it going to the level it went to.”
He said the documentaries that have aired in recent years about Hernandez and his life, which included a Netflix show and an FX series, revealed details he did not know about his ex-teammate.
“I didn’t know it was that bad,” Gronkowski said. “I knew that there was definitely some wild sides to him, but with everything coming out, there is some I would say that is true in the documentaries that come out, there’s some that’s probably exaggerated a little bit but there’s some not exaggerated at all either.”
He added: “Saw some of it, but didn’t know it was to that extreme and not surprised now either. It’s like, OK, that makes sense now.”
The duo had their best season together in 2011, combining for 169 catches, 2,237 yards and 24 receiving touchdowns in the regular season.
They then posted a combined 36 catches for 416 yards and five touchdowns during the Patriots’ postseason run to Super Bowl 2012, where they lost to the Giants.
Gronkowski labeled them the “best combination at the tight end position” and lamented what they could have accomplished together.
He praised Hernandez’s football acumen, calling him an “unbelievable” player and recalling how Hernandez learned the playbook so quickly, while it took him almost half of the season.
“I was the guy that was truly there throughout his whole career in the same room, the whole entire time as him,” Gronkowski said. “It’s unfortunate, though, what happened because the talent was just through the roof, man. If we could have kept that tandem going, we would have been just truly unstoppable.”
They never became truly unstoppable due to the off-the-field issues, with Gronkowski saying he was surprised and shocked to first learn about what Hernandez had done.
“Sad a little bit. Like, no way? Also disappointed like, why would you do that? What’s going on?” Gronkowski said. “We got the whole world in front of us, we got the world by the balls, especially you and I as a tandem, like we got the best team out there, everything. It was shocking.”
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