DETROIT – It's not every day an NFL superstar is mentioned in trade talks.
According to MMQB's Albert Breer, the New England Patriots were shopping their star tight end Rob Gronkowski. One of the teams they called? The Detroit Lions.
“I don’t think they were shopping Gronk to the entire league, but there were some teams they trust that I know they talked to. Detroit, Tennessee, Houston, San Francisco — you guys can make the connections there,” Breer said.
Obviously, Lions GM Bob Quinn is a former Patriots front office man.
Breer goes on to say the Patriots and Gronk will likely agree to a new deal at some point, despite the trade talk.
“This kind of came to a point where he sort of disengaged from the program and asked for a raise,” Breer said. ” … there was this bizarre press conference before that monster truck rally that Gronk had. That sort of served as the ‘All right, we need to get him in here now and need a sit-down talk with him because this can’t keep going the way it’s going.’
“So Bill has Gronk in, and at that point, Bill had some discussions about trading him and Gronk sat down with Bill and all indications I got was that Gronk basically affirmed to Bill he wants to be a Patriot. That’s when they decided ‘OK, we’re gonna try to work out contract terms and go forward with this thing,” but there was a come to Jesus moment.”