'American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez': Was He Better Than Rob Gronkowski?

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 10, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 10, 2024 |

In last week’s episode of American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, the one television show I’m inexplicably writing about every week, we see the New England Patriots draft tight end Rob Gronkowski in the second round with the 42nd pick. Due to concerns about his off-the-field behavior, Aaron Hernandez—thought to have first-round talent—fell to the fourth round and the 113th pick overall.

This week’s episode tracks their first season as Patriots and introduces Bill Belichick, played fantastically by Norbert Leo Butz, as a man of few words who takes no nonsense and apparently loves Bon Jovi. Who doesn’t? However, like Hernandez’s college coach, Urban Meyer, and his own father, Belichick proves to be a terrible father figure—a hard-ass who cares only about results and little about the person. This characterization also aligns with Belichick’s portrayal in the Apple TV+ series on the Pats dynasty.

For the first time, this week’s episode finally explores the possible impact of concussions on Hernandez’s violent and disturbed actions. Oddly, the series seems to blame Belichick for Hernandez’s head injuries by suggesting he played him at running back—a move exaggerated in the episode. Hernandez carried the ball as a running back just three times in his rookie season, and all three plays were end-arounds, meaning Hernandez never actually lined up as a running back as implied in the series. Does that matter for how Hernandez incurred head injuries? Not really, but for the pedants among us, this is a dubious storyline.

There’s also no reason a series about Aaron Hernandez would highlight the play of the Patriots’ other tight end. Based solely on the episode, the average viewer might think Hernandez was the superior tight end, while Gronkowski just laughed maniacally on the side. For the record, that’s inaccurate: Hernandez laughed maniacally a lot, but Gronkowski was equally impressive during their rookie years and outperformed Hernandez in the following two seasons. Gronk scored 38 touchdowns over those three seasons compared to Hernandez’s 18 (Gronk would also play at a Hall of Fame level for eight seasons after Hernandez went to prison).

What’s baffling is that, even with two of the all-time great tight ends on the team for three seasons, the Patriots never won a Super Bowl while Hernandez was with them. That’s because karma is a bitch.