Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski Confirms He Will Attend Mandatory Minicamp

Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski confirmed  Sunday that he will attend the team’s mandatory minicamp this week after being absent from voluntary OTAs.

“We’ve got mandatory minicamp this week. So I’ll be there this week. I’ll be full go. I’m looking forward to it. Can’t wait to get back to work. I’m excited,” Gronkowski said, via CBS Boston.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft said earlier last week that he expects Gronkowski to attend minicamp, so it appears that there was little doubt he would be absent.

Jeff Howe of The Ahtletic recently reported that the Patriots and Gronkowski were closing in a restructured contract and it’s considered likely that Gronkowski will play the 2018 season under the new terms.

It’s worth mentioning that the Patriots added some incentives to Gronkowski’s contract last year that allowed him to make $10.1875 million for the 2017 season. As of now, Gronkowski stands to earn $8.91 million for the 2018.

Gronkowski, 28, is a former second-round pick of the Patriots back in 2010. He is in the sixth year of his eight-year, $55.23 million contract that included $13.17 million guaranteed.

Gronkowski has outplayed this contract by a mile and was one of the most underpaid players in the NFL. He was set to make base salaries of $4.25 million (2017), $8 million (2018) and $9 million (2019) over the remainder of the contract when he agreed to a restructured contract this summer.

In 2017, Gronkowski appeared in 14 games and caught 69 passes for 1,084 yards receiving and eight touchdowns for the Patriots.

We’ll have more regarding changes to Gronkowski’s contract as the news is available.