There's a lot of value in Gronk, even though he's injured a lot.

Since he's come into the league 6 years ago, he's missed 18 games, but has the most receiving touchdowns out of every one else in that span.

He rarely fumbles (only 2 in his career of over 400 receptions), even though he gets pummeled.

And his Yds-after-catch is always at the top of the league.

And as others have mentioned, he's one of the best blocking TEs ever.

Where he becomes a hindrance is when his injuries become a question mark. I'm sure it affects the couches gameplans when they are not sure if he'll be in or not. But when he's in, big value. When he's clearly out, their gameplan is without concern.

According to NFL research, since 2010, Tom Brady’s passer rating is 20.1 points higher when Gronkowski is in the lineup. Over that span, Brady completes 8% more of his passes, throws for 33 more yards per game – but most important, the Patriots win more games when Gronk suits up. New England has gone 69-17 (.802) over that span with a healthy Gronkowski, compared with 12-5 (.706) when he misses games.

Again though - flip JUST the Buffalo game at the end of 2014 from an L to a W and that 'without Gronk' number goes to 13-4 (.764). Brady played the first few series and was pretty awful - it was a super conservative gameplan, just get some work in and go home, win or lose.

I won't argue that Gronk doesn't make a big difference in the Pats offensive success but the Pats now have a solid fallback option in Bennett. That didn't exist before this season. I'm far more confident in this offense, as a whole, without Gronk than any season that he's been with the team, they actually have a running game and multiple pass-catchers out of the backfield, which helps negate the loss of a pass-catching TE. Hogan and Mitchell have been running a lot of seam routes that Gronk is known for.

He's a big loss, but those stats are based on fairly small samples and this team is built to do just fine without Gronk imo.