{"id":863099,"date":"2026-04-10T11:39:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T11:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/863099\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T11:39:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T11:39:44","slug":"patriots-announce-2026-hall-of-fame-finalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/863099\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots Announce 2026 Hall of Fame Finalists\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rob Gronkowski played for nine seasons (2010-18) with the Patriots after originally entering the NFL as a second-round draft pick (42nd overall) out of Arizona in the 2010 NFL Draft. He was a part of nine AFC East Division Championship teams, eight conference final teams, five AFC Championship teams and three Super Bowl Championships with the Patriots. He totaled 521 receptions for 7,861 yards and 79 touchdown receptions in the regular season and posted 81 receptions for 1,163 yards and 12 touchdowns in the postseason. He ranks first in Patriots history with 80 total touchdowns (79 receiving and one rushing), and his 7,861 receiving yards are second in team history. In 2011, he set an NFL single-season record with 17 touchdown receptions by a tight end and a then record of 1,327 receiving yards (now sixth in NFL history). He earned five Pro Bowl selections (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2017) and four Associated Press First-Team All-Pro honors (2011, 2014, 2015 and 2017). After retiring following the 2018 season, Gronkowski returned to the NFL and finished his career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he earned a fourth Super Bowl ring in 2020. He is a member of the Patriots All-Dynasty Team and 2010s All-Decade Team. He became the first tight end in NFL history to post three seasons of 1,000 yards receiving and 10-plus touchdowns (2011, 2014 and 2015). In addition, he became the first tight end in NFL history with three straight 10-plus touchdown seasons (2010-12). Gronkowski&#8217;s 1,389 postseason receiving yards are fourth in NFL history and his 15 postseason receiving touchdowns are third in NFL history. His 32 100-yard receiving games are the second among all tight ends. He finished his career ranked sixth among all tight ends with 9,286 receiving yards and third with 92 touchdown receptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Gronkowski played for nine seasons (2010-18) with the Patriots after originally entering the NFL as a second-round&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":863100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,11323,1263,1264,1167,249,2326,2094,6,208,11324],"class_list":{"0":"post-863099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-from-the-hall","10":"tag-hp-article","11":"tag-hp-featured","12":"tag-new-england","13":"tag-new-england-patriots","14":"tag-newengland","15":"tag-newenglandpatriots","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-patriots","18":"tag-patriots-alumni"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116380226265185632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}