00:00Absolutely. That's interesting that you were at the Rob Gronkowski one day signing.
00:04Give me the behind the scenes on that. What was that like?
00:07No, it was awesome. I mean, look, obviously Gronk retired to avoid kind of getting traded.
00:12And then he came back, played, won the Super Bowl and then, you know, finished his career in Tampa Bay.
00:18And I think it was a big part of it was there was this woman who helped with his charitable foundation.
00:25And her last request before she passed away, she sadly passed away from cancer, was I want to have Rob sign that one day contract and retire as a Patriot.
00:33So he fulfilled that. And it was great. You know, Mr. Kraft was there and said a lot of great things.
00:38And Rob is, I mean, truly one of a kind. And having been there, I was my second it was my second year, his rookie year to see him as a young player.
00:48And the thing that I love most about Rob, and I would say this without hesitation, the greatest tight end to ever play the game, not because of what he did in the passing game,
00:57but because he could block like an offensive lineman and he loved it.
01:00He would be giggling while he was blocking guys and pancaking them.
01:04And he was one of a kind, just brought a childlike love of the game.
01:09And it, it, it was tough times in New England, right? Playing for Bill Belichick was not easy and, and Rob always made it light and have had a lot of fun.
01:16And so, so well-deserved by him. What an incredible career.
01:20Yeah. That's that. And that's so funny that you were like, Oh, it wasn't the most fun, but because everybody has those times where it's like, you know,
01:26you have a teacher or you have a, yeah, or something like that, where they really push you hard and you give you that tough love.
01:32No doubt.
01:33Did you, did you see Tom there and did you guys reminisce about, you know, being his backup at any point or anything like that?
01:38Yeah, it was, you know, Tom has been back several times since he, he obviously retired after playing in Tampa.
01:45There was a great hall of fame, Patriots hall of fame induction night here in Gillette.
01:49It was incredible. I mean, they got Jay-Z to perform. Kenny Chesney was performing. It was in the stadium.
01:54It was like basically sold out. And, and the thing that I thought was so cool and unique about that night was, you know, Tom played a long time.
02:01And so there was guys who were in their fifties, even close to their sixties who were older when Tom was young.
02:07And then you had guys who were in their twenties that Tom had just played with.
02:10And so to see the span of generations of players that Tom played with there to celebrate him was awesome.
02:15And it brought all of those guys back together, which was so cool.
02:18Well, I wanted to ask, you know, your 15 year career, what was the best locker room that you were ever a part of?
02:22Was it the Patriots?
02:24Yeah, without a doubt, I think. And I, and I talked about this yesterday doing an appearance.
02:28There was never a locker room that I was a part of that was so close knit.
02:32And that's what you're seeing from the Patriots team that's playing this year in 2025.
02:35And, and what I appreciate about them is they're playing selfless football.
02:39They're accountable to one another.
02:41We just saw Drake may was addressed in the media yesterday and, and, uh, Vrabel had offered the team like, Hey, it's a little cold.
02:48It's going to be okay on Thursday night.
02:49Maybe we practice inside and said, no, we want to go out and practice in the elements.
02:52We want to embrace that and, and seeing that type of, um, you know, accountability is, is what I learned so much from being in those Patriots locker rooms.
03:01As I mentioned before, was on a lot of great organizations was on a few that weren't so great.
03:06And, and those locker rooms, you could see, they were frayed.
03:08There was little packs in each corner, the Patriots locker room.
03:11Uh, you know, I eat lunch and one day it'd be with the offensive lineman.
03:14The next day I'd be with, you know, Devin McCourty and Daron Harmon and Jason McCourty.
03:19And the next day I'm with the receivers.
03:20Like we were truly a bond, uh, of brothers.
03:24And that's why I think they were so successful all that time.
03:27You just had such a tight knit group.
03:30Do you have an idea of like, what, like the worst locker room you were a part of?
03:33And you played for almost half of the league.
03:35So you have so much experience in bad locker rooms.
03:37We hear all the time about, you know, XYZ coach lost the locker room.
03:41Brian obviously got let go by the Giants.
03:43What was the worst locker room you were a part of?
03:45You know, I'm not going to mention the names because there's guys that I care about in those organizations.
03:49But as I mentioned before, what you see in, in bad locker rooms, you see little groups forming, right?
03:54Little clicks.
03:55And when things aren't going well, instead of addressing them, that's when those little clicks, I think about it this way.
04:00Or, you know, I think so-and-so is not doing the job they're supposed to be doing.
04:03And they really pull apart.
04:05And it's unfortunate.
04:06I mean, you see, uh, like you mentioned, the New York Giants, they fire Brian Dayball.
04:10I believe Brian Dayball is a good coach.
04:12It's just a matter of, you know, Jackson Dark gets injured.
04:15They aren't able to win that game.
04:17Uh, when Scadaboo gets injured, you could see the life sucked out of that team.
04:20And it's, it's wild to see what two rookies can do and impact a team.
04:23But now it's affecting the coaching staff.
04:25It's affecting other people.
04:27And I think that's the one thing, good teams, when, when tough times come, they come together.
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