DOES GRONKOWSKI PAD HIS STATS IN BLOWOUTS?

On my way to work this morning I heard a WEEI producer call out Rob Gronkowski as being selfish by padding his stats.  Ken Laird claims that Gronk had multiple touchdowns last season at the end of games in blowouts.  When he was informed that Gronk only had 8 touchdowns last season he didn't back down.  Laird still insisted that Gronk's boy Tom Brady was feeding him easy touchdowns at the end of blowouts.  Hearing this ridiculous accusation, I took to the internet and did some research.

In order to make my research easy to understand I put the relevant data into a simple table.  From here it is easy to determine whether or not touchdowns being scored by Gronk are happening at the end of the game when it is a blowout.

2017 RESULTS- Looking at Gronk's touchdowns last season it's pretty easy to see that 75% of his touchdown were in the first half while none were in the last quarter.  Additionally, the only score which occurred with the team having more than a 7 point lead was against the Dolphins.  Keep in mind that score occurred with 10:28 remaining in the 3rd quarter.

2016 RESULTS- In an injury plagued season Gronk had 3 touchdowns.  Once again, none of them were in the 4th quarter or with a substantial lead.

2015 RESULTS- Uh oh, a season where Gronk scored 3 touchdowns during the 4th quarter.  As usual, the biggest score differential prior to his touchdown was never more than 7 points.  Actually when looking at all 11 of Gronk's scores in 2015, 7 points was the biggest differential prior to the score.

2014 RESULTS- Finally a year where some of Gronk's touchdowns weren't in nailbiters. Were they the garbage, stat-padding scores that Ken Laird claims Gronk thrives on? I don't think so, but you be the judge. I'll throw in a little more information on some of the questionable scores below.

• Miami Game- 8 seconds before the 27 yard score to go up by 18, the Patriots were ahead by only 8
• Colts and Broncos' Games- The year was 2014 and piling on the Colts and Broncos was both necessary and anything but easy.
• Chicago Game- Sorry, but this is the NFL and scoring on a 46 yard reception a mere 2:18 into the second half is not stat-padding.
• Bengals’ Game- This is the official "We are onto Cincinnati" game. Scoring a touchdown early in the 3rd quarter on the road to an undefeated team isn't stat-padding.

CONCLUSION- Ken Laird hasn’t a clue about Gronk.