TAMPA, Fla — The Buffalo Bills were just one game away from playing alongside the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV.
And for tight end Rob Gronkowski, it would have been a dream matchup. Or, as he put it, it “would have been nuts.”
That’s because he grew up just 20 minutes north of Buffalo, rooting on the Bills.
“For myself, because I’m from Buffalo, I was thinking like, ‘Oh man, if Buffalo beats the Chiefs, I’m gonna be playing my hometown,’” he said on Monday during a press conference.
He admitted that after Tampa Bay’s victory over Green Bay in the NFC Championship game, he was constantly checking the score of the AFC Championship between the Kansas City Chiefs and Bills as the Bucs were on their plane ride home from Wisconsin.
“While that game was going on, I was just checking the score, I was like, ‘This is just incredible, like, whoever we play, like, it’s just surreal,” Gronkowski said.
Surreal because, not only could he have been facing off against the team he grew up cheering for, but the alternative would be an opportunity to take on the defending Super Bowl champs in the Chiefs.
“You either play the reigning champs or I’m playing my hometown Buffalo Bills,” he continued.
He said that many people from his life in Buffalo were reaching out, raising the prospect of playing his hometown team.
“All my friends were texting me when the playoffs started, ‘Bucs-Bills! Seeing it now! Bucs-Bills!’ every week and every week we won, they won, ‘Bucs-Bills! Bucs-Bills!’ and I was like, ‘That would be like the craziest Super Bowl just for, you know, myself because I’m from Buffalo,” Gronkowski explained.
Although that dream did not ultimately come to fruition, as the Chiefs defeated the Bills 38-24 to advance to the Super Bowl, Gronkowski is still looking forward to dethroning the team who won it all just a year ago.
This will be Gronkowski’s fifth Super Bowl appearance, previously winning three with quarterback Tom Brady in New England.
He’ll take the field on football’s biggest stage once again on Feb. 7 at Raymond James Stadium. You can catch the game locally on 10 Tampa Bay at 6:30 p.m.
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