Why Gronk has a legit MVP case

— -- There's little debate that quarterback is the most critical position in football, as is evidenced in a number of ways (not the least of which is how starting quarterbacks are paid in free agency). As a result, the NFL's most valuable player award skews towards quarterbacks, who have won the award in 10 of the past 13 seasons (note: in 2003, Peyton Manning and Steve McNair shared the honor).

This year's most valuable player conversation will once again center largely around quarterbacks, with compelling cases to be made for both the Packers' Aaron Rodgers (whose flawless play at Lambeau Field has Green Bay in the mix for one of the NFC's top two playoff seeds) and Tom Brady, who has brushed off a slow start to lead the Patriots to a tie for the best record in the NFL at 11-3, while throwing 32 touchdowns, compared to just eight interceptions.

But there's another player who must be in this conversation, however unlikely it might be that he would actually win the award: Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski. No tight end has ever won the league's MVP, and there's no dismissing that Rodgers, Brady and others have been brilliant (Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt among them), but there's a compelling case to be made for the league's most dominant pass-catcher also being its most valuable player this season. Here's why.

Rob Gronkowski vs. "Gronk"

The Patriots sputtered to a 2-2 start at the outset of 2014, and though Gronkowski had three touchdowns during that four-game stretch, he managed just 13 catches for 147 yards. What's more, Gronkowski looked human with the football in his hands; he wasn't breaking tackles with consistency and wasn't overwhelming at the point of attack as a blocker. The Patriots were also managing Gronkowski's workload, as he played just 35 snaps per game in his first action since an ACL tear last season.

By his own admission, things changed in Week 5 against the Bengals. Gronkowski morphed back into "Gronk." He caught six passes for 100 yards and scored a touchdown. His per-game averages since are six catches, 94.6 yards and .8 touchdowns -- astronomical totals for any pass-catcher, much less a tight end. He's played 63.2 snaps per game over that stretch, as detailed by my colleague, Mike Reiss (who is also on board with the Gronkowski-for-MVP notion), and the Patriots have soared offensively.

Although the numbers help to tell the story, the game tape is what truly paints the picture. After looking timid and cautious in the open field during the season's first month, Gronk has since become both an acrobat up the seam and a contact-seeking, tackler-repelling, human battering ram. There was Gronkowski plucking the football out of mid-air with one hand on a pass thrown high and behind him against the Broncos, vacuuming the throw from Brady amidst multiple Denver defenders and falling just inches short of a touchdown. The very next week, Gronkowski caught an out-breaking route six yards past the line of scrimmage, spun out of the tackle attempt by linebacker D'Qwell Jackson, stiff-armed a defensive back with his left arm, switched the ball from his right arm to his left, stiff-armed another defensive back, sprinted toward the goal line and hurdled between and over two final tacklers.

As NBC announcer Al Michaels described it as the time: "Rob Gronkowski. 26 yards. Like a runaway truck."

Gronk leads the NFL with 248 receiving yards after contact and is averaging 3.3 yards after contact per catch (best in the NFL for players with a minimum 50 targets). In Weeks 1-4, Gronkowski averaged just 2.0 yards after contact per catch. Since then, he's up to 3.5 yards after contact per catch.

The challenge of covering Gronk

Another aspect of Gronkowski's value is the disadvantage he creates for opposing defenses merely by his presence on the field. One NFL defensive coach described it as such: "He's so hard to deal with because he is so versatile and can do so much. If you split him out, you can almost always get a coverage indicator [i.e. man-to-man or zone principles]. So that right there is huge for the offense in terms of [identifying] what defense the opponent is in.

"If you get into two tight-end sets then you've got to decide if you want to treat Gronk or the second tight end as a wide receiver or fullback and match with regular defense [four defensive backs] or sub defense [five or more defensive backs]," he continued. "Gronk is a good enough blocker that if the defense matches with nickel [sub], the Patriots can run it, and if the defense matches with regular, the Patriots can throw."

To summarize those thoughts: Gronk creates two problems before the ball is even snapped. The Patriots have a favorable run or pass matchup, based on the defensive personnel, while Gronk also gives Brady -- one of the best minds in the NFL -- a further coverage tip. More on this later.

Red zone

The MVP is a year-to-year award, but there's a critical aspect to the Patriots' 2013 season that is at least worth mentioning in evaluating Gronkowski's MVP merits. While he was recovering from multiple offseason surgeries prior to his 2013 debut, the Patriots' red zone offense was virtually nonexistent and ranked 30th through the first six weeks, at just 40.9 percent. After his ACL injury in Week 14, the Patriots would go 1-for-4 in the red zone in two of the final three regular-season games of the past season.

We touched on this earlier, but Gronkowski's red-zone impact cannot be overstated. Since Week 5, the Patriots have the fourth best red zone efficiency in the NFL, at 64.6 percent, and trail only the Raiders, Chiefs and Cowboys. Only Broncos tight end Julius Thomas has more red zone touchdowns than Gronkowski among all NFL players. It's one thing to be a good offense between the 20s -- the great offenses separate themselves in the red area. That showed up again on Sunday, as detailed below.

Gronk's impact on others

Assessing Gronkowski's -- or any MVP candidate's -- value involves evaluating if and how they affect others on the field. At 6-foot-6 and close to 270 pounds, defenses have learned playing Gronk man-to-man is unwise. Brady is tactical enough to identify a favorable matchup before the snap and will pick a defense apart when Gronk has said matchup. But as alluded to previously, Gronk also creates mismatches, as we saw in the Patriots' most recent win.

On a third-and-goal play from the Dolphins' 3-yard line, the Patriots flexed Gronk out wide right, with Brandon LaFell in the slot. The Dolphins ushered athletic linebacker Dion Jordan out to hover over Gronk, with safety Reshad Jones a few yards farther back. There was no disguising it: Miami was double-covering Gronk, leaving seven defenders in the box and seven blockers to account for them. Brady, seeing this, checked to a running play and handed off to Shane Vereen for a three-yard score sprung by the attention paid to Gronk. That's just one example of the Patriots' ability to dictate matchups in their favor with Gronkowski.

As I said to one NFL defensive coach: It's like playing offense 12-on-11.

"That's one way to look at it, for sure," he replied.

The Patriots' turnaround since they were rolled by the Chiefs in Week 4 -- nine wins in 10 games -- is not solely due to Gronkowski. Brady has been terrific, the offensive line has been much better than in those first four games, the defense has remained a strength -- frankly, the entire team has played at a higher level. But in a league in which the tight end position is on the rise, one stands above the rest: Gronkowski, whose name should stick in the MVP conversation.