When it comes to the NFL calendar, March is that rare stretch of the year when so much is happening off the field. College football’s rising stars are at the Combine, free agency is in full swing, and some players are making headlines for switching teams. But outside all that, there are players like Rob Gronkowski, who use this time to let loose.
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In the latest edition of Dudes on Dudes, the four-time Super Bowl winner pulled back the curtain on how he thinks a typical NFL player usually spends this part of the offseason.
As per Gronk, March is the month when players finally get a taste of the fun they’ve been missing out on all season. “The month of March is kind of like letting yourself go,” Gronkowski said. “You let yourself be free. You don’t really think about football.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean they completely neglect their training. According to the Patriots legend, players typically still work out three to four times a week to keep themselves in shape. The rest of the time? From renting yachts to exotic vacations, players do every single activity that screams luxury.
“You’re having a good time—you’re going on vacations, you’re going to the beach, you’re renting yachts, you’re renting Lamborghinis to drive around the city you’re vacationing in,” he revealed. “You’re going out late. This is when you get all that FOMO out of your system.”
While this approach mirrored Rob Gronkowski’s larger-than-life approach, former teammate and co-host Julian Edelman noted that this is not how most NFL players spend their March.
Per the ex-Patriots WR, March is the time when players start locking in for the next season, considering it’s only a handful of players who are lucky to make it to the offseason. So for the rest of the league, early January and February is where the “let loose” happens—a feeling oblivious to perennial playoff darlings like Rob Gronkowski.
“For Rob, this is his part of the offseason where it’s about having fun, because Rob played until February most of his career,” Edelman said. “But for most guys, they’ve already been out for three or four months. So this is probably like the ‘tighten-up’ stage.”
Edelman, known for his tireless work ethic, shed further light into his version of spending March by noting that at this period of the year, he used to see himself shift to the grind mode.
For the former Patriots WR, the motivation to put in the efforts while everyone else was partying came from him craving the validation that comes from acing conditioning tests in the preliminary training camps.
“I remember the cutoff was St. Patty’s Day. After that, it was like, ‘We got to start getting ready for the season.’ I wanted to turn heads when I went into camp, so I would stop drinking about a month before we had to report. Then I would go Zero Dark Thirty into training mode.”
So, whether you’re team Gronk-style March or team Edelman lockdown mode, one thing is clear—March is when NFL players either recharge or fall behind. Some are on yachts, some are in the gym, but all of them know that soon enough, football will come calling again.
