How important is shutting down Gronk...

Pretty telling numbers. Gronk is obviously priority #1.

 

The problem with Gronk is that you do enough to shut him down, you open up other parts of the field. The good thing is that without Edelman for the year it's harder for Brady to sustain drives indefinitely by just spamming the short stuff, so selling out to stop Gronk is a better gamble than it would have been in years past.

The pass rush has to come up big though, because if Brady has time to hit the intermediate to long passes to Cooks and Hogan while Gronk draws all the coverage they can bust out big plays out of nowhere and get the Titans in trouble fast. Cooks and Hogan aren't ELITE - we're not talking AB or Julio Jones here - but they can put up big numbers quickly if they are given favorable matchups.

Take away Gronk, don't give Brady time to bust out the big play, and maybe concede some of the short passing because it's just not as good as it was in past years for them. That seems like the best general approach. If you can combine that with long drives on offense you keep things tight enough that anything can happen down the stretch.

 

“ROBOCOP” Gronkowski . Tomorrow he destroy Titans defense.

 

Probably, but then we'll turn around and shove BDH down your throat..

Should be fun.

 

did someone say shut down Gronk? Has that been done before? Only Gronk shuts down Gronk,

 

KC, OAK, ATL did pretty good this year, but if he only gets what he got against Carolina, Denver, LA Chargers or Buffalo #2, those would be Tennessee victories.

Gronk is stoppable. This thread was created more for the issues Tennessee has had against TE, not how good or stoppable Gronkowski is.
Worst case, hopefully NE uses him to block for any XP attempts they may have.

 

A few franchises have a player talented enough to cover Gronk one on one. Eric Berry from KC did an excellent job week 1. Kuechley out of Carolina can also manage it. I've seen some teams rotate some elite corners to do it as well when possible. Seattle's safeties also come to mind.

 

only way to "beat Gronk" is to put Brady on his a$$ early and often. So basically if Fata$$ earns his $875 k a game along with the OLB's we might just have a chance....

 

You realize he sits for the anthem?