Buffalo Bills cornerback Stephon Gilmore hopes to be given an opportunity to take on one of the most daunting tasks in football this weekend — covering Rob Gronkowski.
On Tuesday, the 6-foot-1, 190-pound defender was asked if he expects to be covering New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman or someone else. Gilmore is thinking much, much bigger.
“I hope I get Gronk, to be honest with you,” he said, via Tyler Dunne of The Buffalo News. “We’ll see what the coaching staff says. Because I know the ball’s going to him.”
Tom Brady threw the ball to Edelman 12 times in New England’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers last week, and Edelman secured 11 catches for 97 yards. Gronkowski was targeted eight times and made just five catches, but three of them were touchdowns.
“I can go inside. He’s a bigger guy so it’s not like I’m going inside on a smaller guy,” Gilmore said. “But like I said, it’s whatever the coaches want me to do to help this team win. … I want him.”
You have to admire the confidence, but Gronkowski has five inches and 75 pounds on Gilmore. Unless Gilmore is able to jam Gronk at the line and completely disrupt his timing, it would be almost impossible for him to cover No. 87 one-on-one.
Even Rex Ryan acknowledged that trying to use one defender on Gronkowski would be asking for trouble.
Rex on covering Gronk: "We're not going to ask one guy to say, 'He is your guy.' He'd have to look like King Kong or something."
— Tyler Dunne (@TyDunne) September 16, 2015
Ryan has already thrown shade at the Patriots leading up to the big game, but he knows Gronk is the type of player who can beat a defense by himself. He’s not going to leave covering the best tight end in the game up to one player.
H/T Around the NFL
