Sports are all about teamwork, dedication, and excitement. But they’re also about toughness and aggression, and NFL football especially so. All that testosterone boiling over during a violent game like football can sometimes result in scuffles or all-out brawls. But more often than not, it results in a lot of chirping and trash-talking. NFL players, especially fun-loving guys like Rob Gronkowski, love the added intensity trash-talking brings to the game.
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Four former NFL players on the NFL on Fox broadcasting team were recently asked which player talked the most trash at them during their playing days. While the other three named opponents, Gronkowski had a much more intriguing response: a teammate who used to trash-talk him “every other day in practice.”
“I’m gonna have to go with a teammate, because he always talked trash to me basically every other day in practice. And we were kinda going back and forth at each other in college, too, when he was at the University of Oregon. I’m talking about Patrick Chung. I’m coming for you, buddy.”
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Chung played for the New England Patriots from 2009 to 2012 and again from 2014 to 2020, while Gronkowski was in Foxborough from 2010 to 2018. That means the pair spent eight seasons together with the Patriots, a successful period that included three Super Bowl wins.
Gronkowski stands 6’6″ and 265 pounds, while Chung measures just under 6’0″ and 215 pounds of explosive muscle. There’s no doubt the tight end and safety locked horns more than a few times in practice, inevitably leading to plenty of trash-talking.
The pair already had a feisty relationship stemming from college. Rob Gronkowski hailed from Arizona. Patrick Chung attended Oregon. Both schools were in the Pac-10 back in 2007-2008, when the pair faced off in back-to-back seasons. Gronk’s Wildcats won in 2007, but Chung and the Ducks got their revenge the next year.
That game in 2008, when Chung was a fifth-year senior while Gronk was just in his sophomore year, turned out to be a 55-45 barnburner of a win for Oregon that included over 1,000 yards of offense. In the first quarter, Chung stepped in front of a pass headed for Gronk and returned it 31 yards for the INT return TD.
Gronk was off to the races after that, however. As Chung remembers it, Gronk had “like 18 catches” that day. His memory is a bit off, but we can see how Gronk’s 12 catches for 143 yards and a TD might seem even more impactful than the raw numbers.
Chung celebrated New England’s draft selection of Gronk a few years later. After eight seasons together, Gronk and Chung viewed each other as the “same people”, with the tight end calling the safety the defensive version of himself.
The rest of the NFL on Fox panel also had some fun and nostalgic picks for who talked the most trash. Hall of Fame DB Charles Woodson named three-time Pro Bowl receiver Eric Moulds, Julian Edelman chose outspoken and hard-hitting linebacker Bart Scott, and Mike Vick went with three-time All-Pro defensive lineman Kris Jenkins.
