We all know the story of the week in regards to Rob Gronkowski is his cheap shot on Tre’Davious White this past Sunday. We’re all sick and tired of hearing about it already, so let’s look at another Gronk storyline: the abundance of offensive pass interference calls pegged on him.
It’s been going on for years; ever since he entered the league in 2010, really. Everybody knows just how much bigger Gronkowski is than everyone else on the field. He makes some of the best players look puny. This means that he is going to tower above every defender, guaranteed, that matches up against him. It’s physically impossible for Gronk not to completely physically dominate whoever is hapless enough to get assigned to him that week, yet the NFL can’t seem to comprehend that after all these years.
The referees truly have a separate set of rules in place for Gronkowski, which is insanely pathetic. Gronk’s size forces defenders to play him harder, resulting in mutual heavy contact and aggressive play. (isn’t that essentially the definition of football?). When you really think about it, just about any pass-catcher has an advantage over defensive players trying to stop them on any given play. Gronk just fits that definition a bit moreso, and that shouldn’t be that difficult to understand and adapt to for the league. Yet here we are, seven-plus years later, and week after week, Gronk is getting flagged for one of the more overall random and straight up dumber rules in all of sports.
Gronkowski has “commit” three OPI penalties this season. When you really think about it, you see what Gronk gets called for dozens of times in any given NFL game in any given route ran by any given receiver that, rightfully so, are seen as football plays. Why is there a completely separate standard for Gronkowski as far as football plays go? When he runs routes and the defender(s) actually do their job and cover Gronk, you rarely, and I mean rarely, see him extend his arms. In my opinion, arms being extended should be a deciding factor in OPI calls. He doesn’t push off, nor does he purposely try to create space. There’s a gigantic and should-be blatant difference between intentionally pushing off on a defender and being twice the size of the defender.
Any reasonable and at least semi-smart person sees and recognizes that most of the time, Gronk is simply fighting to get upfield and/or fighting through press coverage, which doesn’t and should not equate to offensive pass interference. The funny thing is, in seemingly every other route that Gronkowski runs, he’s being held by a defender, and it’s guaranteed to go unrecognized by the refs or the refs simply choose to let it slide. Gronk’s play is emphasized much more because of his size and strength, which is bullshit. It’s almost like the refs are too lazy to focus intently on each play and make logical determinations; albeit, that wouldn’t be surprising to most of us.
New England, as an organization, has openly worked with Gronkowski each and every week in ensuring that he does everything he can on each and every play to avoid getting flagged for this exact penalty. As Gronk and the Patriots have worked harder and harder to play to such a dumb rule, the league has gotten more and more careless with said dumb rule. The only way to stop him is to pray that the refs see Gronk merely graze a defender and get flagged for it. It feels a bit strong to say that the refs target Gronk, but it certainly feels like they do at times.
More OPIs are being called throughout the league than ever; it isn’t just a Gronk thing, either. To that, I say: let the damn players play. It’s extremely infuriating to watch any game and see a receiver get flagged for pass interference. Football has always been and will always be a physical game. Some guys are stronger and bigger than others; that should be known by now. OPI is an asinine rule as it is, The fact that it punishes players for being larger than average is even more asinine.
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