GronkNation

01.12.19

Patriots-Chargers Preview: 'The Playoffs Are a Whole New Season, It’s a Fresh Start,' Gronk Says

Posted by: Gronkowski

The Chargers left the comforts of Southern California to brave not only the Patriots in the AFC Divisional game but also some brutally cold weather with game time temperatures struggling to get out of the teens. 

Lest we forget, these are the Los Angeles Chargers, not the San Diego Chargers anymore – which seems to slip the minds of play-by-play commentators, analysts, fans … and even the players themselves. 

You’d have thought the “Beat LA” (inspired by Celtics-Lakers rivalry and the Sox-Dodgers World Series) was a hint …

When asked if he catches himself calling them the San Diego Chargers earlier this week, Gronk answered honestly, “Who doesn’t? Half of my friends who have talked to me have said, ‘Yo, you’re playing San Diego,’ and I’m just like, ‘It’s L.A.’ But I said it a few times too. It’s the Chargers.”

As for the actual big game itself, Big Rob is hyped to be back in the playoffs. “The playoffs are a whole new season. It’s a fresh start. The excitement level from the fans to the players always jumps up another notch, if not a few notches,” he told reporters. “It’s going to be good, it’s going to be rocking come Sunday at 1 o’clock and the excitement level from the players to the fans is always up.”

And this Buffalo kid is definitely not worried about the weather. “It was cool at first with that snow coming down. You know it’s that time of the year in New England when you see snow … it’s time to play some football,” Gronk said. “We’ve practiced in it many, many times before, so it was really nothing new. It’s always cold out here in December, January.” 

Tom Brady echoed that delight in the frigid weather report on Friday, according to Boston.com, saying: “It’s cold and that’s just this part of this time of year. But it’s good to be playing when it’s cold out, it’s good to be playing this time of year in Foxborough.

“It’s just fun to be around; I’m out there today practicing and it’s whatever degrees out: 10 degrees, 15 degrees with the real feel,” he added.

Of course, even though he hails from California, Brady has NO problem with Gillette turning into a frozen tundra. 

This mountain G.O.A.T.  has won 44 games and lost seven games when the temperature is under 40 degrees.

"I know exactly what to wear. I know how many layers to wear every degree," Brady told CSNNE's Tom Curran on Wednesday. "I'm a f—king machine, man, I'm a f---king machine! C'mon baby!"

Even though Philip Rivers has never beaten Brady in Gillette (he scored a W against the Pats in 2008 with Matt Cassel under center), he has the upmost respect for the fellow veteran QB.

“He’s a great player,” Brady said. “They’ve had a lot of great teams in San Diego over the years, led by him. He’s a great passer, tough, very accurate. He’s a great leader. So when I think of that team it’s just he’s an emotional leader and he always gets those guys going. They always have a good offense. It’s a good team, obviously they’re good in all three phases, they’ve won a lot of games this year, gone on the road a bunch, so they’re very mentally tough. It’s going to take our best to win.”

Gronk had similar high raise for his parallell Chargers tight end.

“I love Antonio Gates,” he said, NESN reported. “He’s been playing since I’ve been in high school. I just love his game ... It’s just surreal how he keeps going at the age he is and the way he’s playing.”

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