Bill Belichick found Rob Gronkowski sleeping on the floor before a pre-draft meeting

Bill Belichick is willing to forgive and forget. There’s no other explanation for why the New England Patriots drafted tight end Rob Gronkowski after what he did on his pre-draft visit.

With Gronk getting named to the “NFL 100” list for NFL Network, Belichick remembered back to when he was scouting the Arizona product in 2010. The Patriots coach said he left Gronkowski alone in a meeting room for a little while, and when Belichick returned, he found Gronk sleeping on the floor.

Why the floor? Because it was more comfortable, I guess. Why was the tight end sleeping? Because … Gronk, I guess.

Here’s a look at Belichick’s story.

“Rob was kind of a shot in the dark. He came up on his pre-draft visit, had a bad visit. We put him in a room, came back, he was asleep on the floor. Didn’t make a very good impression. … I brought him in, you know, we’re getting ready to have a meeting with the coaches and go through, then fell asleep on the floor. Oh boy. Kind of got a slow start there. Went to Arizona, didn’t start as a freshman, had a decent year as a sophomore. Caught 30 passes, and then misses junior year with back surgery. Then came out early for the draft. So there wasn’t much to go on. We traded up for him and we just bet that he would come through. He certainly did big-time.”

Weirdly, it’s not surprising to hear that Gronk did this. But it is hard to believe that Belichick genuinely wanted to draft the tight end afterward. The Patriots traded up to make sure they could land Gronk.

It worked out nicely.