FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — Star tight end Rob Gronkowski stood in front of his Gillette Stadium locker Monday and announced he will be playing in the New England Patriots’ opener at Miami this Sunday.
Meanwhile, the news hardly caught the Dolphins by surprise.
“I’m super excited,” said Gronkowski, who didn’t play in any of the four preseason games as he completed his recovery from December right knee surgery. “I won’t have to see my teammates grind all week – (I’ll) go back out there with them, get in the huddle, break the huddle with them.
“It’s going to be an honor to be back out there with my teammates. Super pumped, super excited and just preparing for the game.”
The pronouncement came as a bit of a surprise in a locker room not known for players “breaking news.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m just getting it out of the way there,” Gronkowski said. “Every single day this week (he would have been asked about returning) – get it out of the way now.”
“It just feels good in my mind to know that I’ll be out there with my boys, working hard, grinding with them, being out there.”
The Patriots are 6-0 alltime when Gronkowski plays against the Dolphins, but Miami has kept him in some check of late. Gronkowski’s last two games against Miami resulted in a total of only four catches.
Mallett to Texans
Jimmy Garoppolo will be carrying a clipboard for Tom Brady on the New England Patriots’ sideline this season.
The Patriots traded former Brady backup Ryan Mallett to the Houston Texans on Sunday, elevating Garoppolo to the No. 2 job behind the twotime NFL MVP.
Garoppolo was a secondround pick in this year’s draft — the highest coach Bill Belichick has ever selected a quarterback in New England.
“We have three good players at that position, three players we have a lot of confidence in,” Belichick said on Sunday just hours before the trade was announced. “It’s a good situation.”
Mallett was 14 for 26 for 161 yards and a touchdown this preseason, and his fate seemed decided when Garoppolo played the entire exhibition finale on Thursday night against the New York Giants.
Originally a third-round draft pick from Arkansas, Mallett played four regularseason games in three years with the Patriots, completing one pass.
In Houston, Mallett will move into the backup role created when the Texans cut Case Keenum later Sunday. Keenum had been competing with rookie fourth-round pick Tom Savage for the No. 2 role behind Harvard product Ryan Fitzpatrick.
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