Here It Is, The Dumbest Thing Ever Written About Rob Gronkowski's Partying

The Summer of Gronk started early this year, with shirtless drinking, shirtless dancing, and the usual assorted shenanigans. But Year 2 has come with a backlash, the growing phenomenon of Gronkshaming.

No one's better than the Boston media at trying to make a young, rich athlete look bad for doing young, rich athlete things, and yesterday the It contains awful lines like "But you still have to sit back and wonder what he was thinking" and "He probably wasn't thinking about Bill Belichick's famous words to every player: 'Do your job'" and my personal favorite, "Gronkowski constantly talks about the team concept. He just has to figure out what that really means." (The man was dancing at a club, in case you forgot.)

But leave that aside; it's amateur hour compared to this. Today, columnist Christopher Gasper in the Globe weighs in with a thinkpiece entitled "Rob Gronkowski's shirtless antics are growing old." It's behind a paywall, so you should never again feel bad about the death of newspapers.

Gasper does the usual song-and-dance: Gronk has a responsibility to be responsible, Gronk shouldn't make a public spectacle, this isn't the Patriot way. Gag, whatever. But then, out of nowhere, comes this stunning logic bomb:

If Gronkowski puts himself in a situation in which there is drunk driving, drug use, physical violence, or allegations of sexual misconduct, the team won't be so understanding of him living up to his self-ordained, grammatically incorrect Spanish nom de beer of "Yo soy fiesta."

Holy shit. Read that again. The key point, in a professional columnist's piece in a widely read and respected American newspaper, is this: What if Rob Gronkowski kills or rapes someone? And if Gronkowski kills or rapes someone, then his partying will become a real problem.

This is the apex of concern-trolling. Sure, it's all harmless fun now. (Gasper actually says it's "harmless fun." The cognitive whiplash must be crippling.) But what if he commits a brutal felony? What then, people who think casual drinking is OK? Check and mate.

Rob Gronkowski's shirtless antics are growing old [Boston Globe]