Patriots Notebook: Kraft rejects report Patriots were near Gronkowski trade

Three Patriots-related notes from Tuesday and what they mean:

1. Patriots owner Robert Kraft roundly rejected the story the team almost traded tight end Rob Gronkowski last weekend.


A story from the weekend said New England was on the cusp of shipping Gronkowski out of town, but Kraft vetoed the deal.

"When you're team is good, people are looking for things. I'll just tell you it's a bunch of hogwash that I vetoed some trade," Kraft said, speaking with the media at the annual Myra Kraft Community MVP Awards.. "That was never in the works. It's just completely made up ... and I think we have to be careful in society, people just can't come out and say things. This bit about us trading Gronk to the 49ers or Tennessee, there's no basis to it and it gets a life of its own. I just want to go on record to make sure you all understand there's no truth to that."

No great surprise here. Multiple reports — including one from Greg — indicate there was (at the very least) some trade chatter around Gronkowski at one point this offseason. But now, especially in the wake of this post, news a new deal could be near, and the fact he was the happiest guy on the field at last week's minicamp seem to indicate things have been smoothed over between the team and the tight end, in some form or another, at least for now.

2. The Patriots canceled the final two days of the final week of their OTAs.

New England had two more days of OTA work scheduled, but Kraft told reporters the last two days were canceled. Despite the “No Days Off” mantra, this is not completely out of the ordinary — the Patriots have called off the last day of the offseason program on a number of occasions. This week was certainly lighter than most, however, as Monday was spent as part of a team-building session at Fenway Park.

3. On to training camp

Not sure how this will impact the media availability situation — we had been scheduled to have access on Thursday — but at this point, it sounds like the next time we’ll have access to the players and coaches will be at the start of training camp. There have been no official dates revealed as of yet, but according to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the first possible practice of training camp can be held 14 days prior to each team’s first preseason game. The Patriots’ preseason game of the summer is set for Aug. 9 at home against the Redskins, which means New England could theoretically hold its first training camp practice of the summer on July 26. We should have more news on specific camp days in the next week or two.