Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski rated best player against the Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers are a great football organization, but one player they could never figure out how to stop was Patriots tight end, Rob Gronkowski.

With all of the question marks surrounding how the Steelers will perform without All-Pro wide receiver Antonio Brown, at least we can take comfort in one thing: Pittsburgh will never again have to face the likes of tight end, Rob Gronkowski.

The Patriots tight end was truly ‘the Steelers killer’ and Pittsburgh never did find a way to contain Gronkowski before he retired. Gronk’s career spanned 9 years and injuries plagued him to only playing two full seasons – the last of which came all the way back in 2011.

Recently, Ben Linsey of Pro Football Focus wrote an article explain the ‘NFL’s team-killers’ and it wasn’t a big surprise to see Gronkowski on this list. With a 94.5 overall grade in his career against Pittsburgh, Gronk was unstoppable. Here is what Linsey had to say on the Patriots tight end being the ‘team-killer’ against the Steelers:

"As I mentioned in the intro to this article, Gronkowski utterly dominated his matchups with the Steelers. He was targeted 51 times and brought in 41 of those passes for 685 yards and eight touchdowns. No matter which metric you look at Gronk is up near the top but most impressive is his passer rating when targeted – a perfect 158.3. Can’t get any better than that."

It seems impossible that, over the course of nearly a decade, the Steelers couldn’t find a way to slow down Rob Gronkowski. Putting up a perfect 158.3 passer rating is something that certainly deserves recognition.

The Steelers probably deserve some blame for not choosing to blanket him more often, but there is no denying that Gronk was one of the best tight ends the league has seen. In fact out of all the great tight ends in the history of the NFL, I’m not sure if you can name one player better when they were healthy.

Gronk’s play had leveled off over the past few years, hampered by nagging back injuries. It was evident that he lost much of that speed and power that made him so dangerous. Rob Gronkowski would finish his career with 5 Pro Bowls and 4 All-Pro honors.

Though we can breathe a sigh of relief knowing Gronk will no longer be there to haunt the Steelers, in a strange way I will actually miss the challenge of having to face one of the all-time greats. One thing is for certain: Gronkowski truly was the Steelers killer.