Rob Gronkowski’s ankle a huge wild card

Tony Massarotti

January 28, 2012|By Tony Massarotti

Rob Gronkowski was injured on this play with Bernard Pollard on Sunday. (Barry Chin/Globe Staff)

Rob Gronkowski was the elephant in the room to begin with, a 6-foot-6, 265-pound behemoth with cast iron legs, a granite torso and hands made of cashmere. Outside of Tom Brady, there may be no more important player on the Patriots. And yet, as we inch toward Super Bowl XLVI, there has been relatively little discussion or information concerning a man who may be downright indefensible.

Will Gronkowski be able to play?

And if so, how effectively?

Make of it what you will, but the only news about Gronkowski came earlier this week from the Herald’s Ian Rapoport, who reported that Gronkowski has “some” ligament damage in his left ankle from Sunday’s AFC Championship victory over the Baltimore Ravens. Some. Precisely how much, of course, is entirely unknown to those of us on the outside, though anyone who saw Gronkowski felled by Ravens safety Bernard Pollard winced when Gronkowski’s left ankle folded unnaturally inward, as if breaking the binding of a book.

Given the Patriots’ history when it comes to discussing injuries - and nobody is blaming them for this - the word “some” is rather worrisome. Anyone who has worked in the media will tell you that bad news often comes in diluted form - if we get it at all. In these cases, many of us apply to the iceberg theory, which is to say that the majority of the story is still beneath the surface.

Translation: If someone in Foxborough is whispering that there is “some” ligament damage, there is likely to be a good deal more.

Purely for the record, here is what Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick said when asked about Gronkowski yesterday:

Reporter: Do you have any doubt Rob Gronkowski will be ready for the game?

Brady: I have no idea. I’m not sure. I think everyone deals with bumps and bruises this time of year. It’s the Super Bowl so we’re all trying to get out there and be healthy. It would suck to miss this game. You put all the work in over the course of the entire year and to have the opportunity to play in this game, you know everyone is going to be doing everything they can to be out there.

Reporter: How would you describe the progress of Rob Gronkowski?

Belichick: Good, good.

Reporter: If Rob Gronkowski doesn’t practice but does play in the game, how much does that affect what you’re able to do on the practice field, or do you just rely on the previous 105 practices? I think he was out there for pretty much all of them.

Belichick: Right, yeah I think he was, yeah. We’ll just have to see, you know. Today, he’s not going to practice today, so we’ll take it day-by-day. I’m not going to try to forecast where things will be 10 days from now. We’ll just take it day-by-day.