Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots have done their best to downplay the talk of a feud between their training staff and Brady’s personal trainer, but the troubling anecdotes seem to keep piling up.
With rumors swirling that Rob Gronkowski is considering retirement, Mark Daniels of the Providence Journal shared some interesting information on Tuesday about a story he wrote on Gronkowski working with Alex Guerrero and following the so-called TB12 method. Daniels published a piece last month about how Gronkowski got in the best shape of his career by following a similar plan to the one Tom Brady credits for his sustained success. For whatever reason, the reporter says the Patriots did not want him to write the story.
“The team didn’t necessarily want him to train the way he wanted to train. … He was pissed and the season played out.”
That’s true. The Patriots also didn’t want me to write a story on Gronk doing the TB12 diet and working with Guerrero. https://t.co/m3deK09hUX
— Mark Daniels (@MarkDanielsPJ) February 27, 2018
Gronk agreed to talk to me about his new diet and when the Pats found out, they told me it couldn’t happen. But since Gronk really wanted to talk about it, he did. In the end, I still got a 1400-word feature out of it, but it was annoying how the Pats tried to stop the story.
— Mark Daniels (@MarkDanielsPJ) February 27, 2018
Daniels decided to share his experience in the wake of a report that claimed Gronkowski considered retiring in training camp last year and was butting heads with the Patriots over his rehab from back surgery. If you remember, ESPN’s Seth Wickersham said in his bombshell piece about New England’s power struggle that some Patriots players were seeking treatment from Guerrero and undermining the team’s training staff.
It’s important to note that the Patriots came just a few plays short of winning yet another title despite all the drama that supposedly unfolded over the past seven or eight months. Still, the way Brady and other prominent players defended Malcolm Butler publicly after the cornerback was benched in the Super Bowl was telling. Distractions like these have been extremely rare in the Bill Belichick era, but the Patriots clearly have to address them this offseason.
