Rob Gronkowski provided an allegory on the extent to which Bill Belichick wanted the Patriots to demolish all opponents.
Speaking to Front Office Sports on behalf of the Gronk Geeks Out live show that he will be doing with eBay at the National Collectors Convention outside Chicago later this week, Gronkowski revealed one of the reasons that the walls of his house are not filled with framed jerseys—besides his own and his brothers’, all of which are hanging in the weight room in his basement.
“I never really collected anything from anybody else. That ‘jersey swap’ and everything just kind of wasn’t for me,” Gronkowski said. “Coach Belichick really didn’t like us jersey-swapping. That was our opponent. He’d be like, ‘No jersey swapping after the game. We want to beat the crap out of them. We don’t want to be friends with them.’ Jersey-swapping and getting memorabilia from others really wasn’t a thing at the time.”
Still, the four-time Super Bowl champion amassed plenty of keepsakes over his 11-year NFL career. Gronkowski said his favorite piece of personal memorabilia was his own jersey from Super Bowl XLIX, where New England beat Seattle 28-24 on Malcolm Butler’s goal-line interception.
