Patriots’ Rob Gronkowski, Tom Brady get in extra work together

Rob Gronkowski was unable to take part in 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills, but he did get some reps with his favorite quarterback after practice. ESPN Boston’s Mike Reiss pointed out that it was the perfect pace for the two to begin to reconnect. There was no way Brady wasn’t going to be doing extra reps, so it might as well have been with Gronk.

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“I’m excited to be out here with my teammates and working to get better,” Brady said after the two-hour practice, via ESPN Boston. “It’s a long training camp. It’s going to be a lot of effort and a lot of work. There is no easy way about it. You just have to grind and put the work in and listen to the coaches, try to make the improvements. Hopefully when we start the season, we’ll be a lot better team than we are now.”

Gronkowski currently resembles the bionic man, with braces on his right knee and left forearm.

Gronkowki could be wearing Tony Starks’ Iron Man suit, and Tom Brady wouldn’t care. He’s just happy to have one of the NFL’s premier offensive talents back on the field.

“When you have great players like that on the field, it helps you a lot. Your margin for error goes up,” Brady said. “But you have to prepare for both. I don’t think the expectations have changed — you still have to go out and execute the play the best way you know how to and try to do it at a high level on a really consistent basis.”