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There’s one call between Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski that won’t run as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers face the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV.
It will just keep going viral instead. T-Mobile depicted Brady and Gronkowski’s phone conversation of how they landed in Tampa for the 2020 season, but the mobile phone commercial won’t run during the Super Bowl despite already reaching 10.1 million viewers online since Friday.
In the commercial, Brady calls Gronkowski about retiring. Gronkowski encourages him to retire and “just come to Florida” and that “retirement is like winning another one — maybe I’ll even join you” The poor connection causes Brady to hear Gronkowski telling him retiring would be soft and weak of him, so “just come to Florida and win another one — maybe I’ll even join you.”
Brady then announces his next move to play in Florida and bring Gronkowski along — to the star tight end’s surprise. T-Mobile calls itself “the GOAT in 5G” at the end, a play off of Brady being known as the GOAT — an acronym for greatest of all time.
Called Off
Brady and Gronkowski’s commercial appearance won’t hit the airwaves during the Super Bowl due to a “protected telco rights deal” according to Kevin Slane of the Boston Globe.
T-Mobile received an email about the commercial being banned, “even after editing”, and didn’t name the organization responsible for banning the commercial per Slane. The NFL has a partnership with Verizon that started in 2019 according to Slane.
It thwarted Brady appearing in Super Bowl commercials back-to-back years according to Fox News. He appeared in a Hulu commercial last year that drew speculation on whether or not he will retire.
The Real Story
Brady and Gronkowski really didn’t decide on coming to Tampa over a broken cell phone connection.
The future Hall of Fame quarterback made the first move by signing with the Bucs as a free agent in March 2020, leaving the New England Patriots after 20 seasons. He then called Gronkowski about coming back to football after retiring in 2019, Gronk agreed but had a little fun teasing Brady first.
Tampa acquired him in a trade with the Patriots in April 2020. His contract expires after the season, but he plans to play for the Bucs in 2021.
Brady-Gronk Connection
Brady and Gronkowski have developed enough of a relationship as teammates that they shared their own imitations of each other during the season.
The Bucs signal-caller went first at a Dec. 31 press conference, recounting a story of when Gronkowski wanted to catch passes during the offseason to get ready for a GQ photoshoot. Gronkowski said “I feel ripped now” after catching some throws in the rain Brady said with a smile.
For Gronkowski, he talked during a Jan. 6 press conference about the time he helped Brady take a break from his TB12 diet at the Kentucky Derby and drink a Fireball. Gronkowski said Brady reacted and said, “Oh, how am I gonna throw next week?”
The first-year Bucs brought some of their off-field friendship to series, “Tommy and Gronky” that ran on the team’s YouTube page during the season.
In the series, they made a call on their favorite Super Bowl rings being the next one, which they’ll go after on Sunday against the Chiefs.
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