How good is Rob Gronkowski? His 2011 season with 459 receiving DYAR was not only the best tight end season in our database, it’s 100 DYAR ahead of any other season. Last year, he “only” had the tenth highest tight end DYAR in history, not bad for only 11 games. Gronkowski is the only tight end in the 22 years of DVOA stats to have at least 50 passes with a DVOA higher than 40% in three different seasons, pretty remarkable considering that his career only consists of three different seasons. (Ken Dilger and Brent Jones are the only other two tight ends to do it twice.) On top of all this, he’s one of the five best blockers among the league’s starting tight ends. In other words, if Gronkowski has further complications from offseason back and arm surgeries and misses significant time, the Patriots are in real trouble.