Gronk is strong enough to make some big plays by breaking tackles, a la Mark Bavaro (who never beat anyone in a foot race). That still doesn't make him "explosive" in my view........ Vernon Davis would be a better example. He's got the size/strength/speed package that few TEs do.
Gates just needs to be able to beat LB's and crush DB's again and I think he'll be just fine if he has no set backs this off season.
How much of him butchering 2-minute offenses can also be attributed to the fact that we (or so was heavily rumored from several, normally dependable, sources) never rehearsed or practiced a 2-minute offense? Kind of hard to execute cleanly when you don't have the reps to refer to. A lot of the success of the NH and two-minute offense comes from quality muscle memory; your body already knows what it's supposed to do, your mind knows where it's got to get that body to because a ton of NH is timing-based stuff. You don't get those reps and it's pretty damn easy to flub it up.
