Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski spent a lot of time out of practice after hurting his hamstring in the middle of August and he’s been limited in the team’s sessions this week with their season-opening trip to Arizona drawing closer.
Since Gronkowski hasn’t played in the preseason in several years, the feeling for much of that time has been that the team was just being cautious in order to make sure he’s 100 percent for that trip. On Thursday, Gronkowski said that 100 percent might not be in the cards for the game with the Cards, however.
Gronkowski said, via Courtney Fallon of NFL Media, that he is “week-to-week” with the injury and that the hamstring is still bothering him at this point. He also said that he wants “to be out there so badly to help my team,” although it sounds like there’s a good chance that a call on his status could go down to the wire on Sunday night.
Anything less than a full-speed Gronkowski is a negative for the Patriots under the best of circumstances, but having him hobbled or missing altogether would be an even bigger blow in Jimmy Garoppolo’s first NFL start.