“Five defensive backs ... Aaron Hernandez again ... what a trick move to get free! Brought down by Byrd, weaves his way to the 11.”

For three years, Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski were intertwined. Not only were they the two leading tight ends on the Patriots’ roster, they were the first tight-end pair in NFL history to catch five touchdown passes in consecutive seasons with the same team.

On 1 February this year, Gronkowski won his first Super Bowl ring in Glendale, Arizona, catching six passes for 68 yards and scoring a touchdown. Hernandez was 2,607 miles away, mouldering in a jail in Bristol County, Massachusetts; the physical distance was great, the symbolic distance even greater.

Aaron Hernandez found guilty of first-degree murder of Odin Lloyd Read more

Now Hernandez has been convicted of the murder of Odin Lloyd and has been sentenced to life without parole.

He also faces further legal trouble. Eleven months ago, Hernandez was indicted on murder charges for the killings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.



Hernandez is highly unlikely to play again. And yet, in just three short years, he showed his worth. In just his second game – against the New York Jets – he became the youngest player in 50 years to have 100 yards receiving in a single game. In 38 games, he had 175 catches for a total of 1,956 yards. Were it not for injuries in 2011 and 2012, Hernandez could have easily been just as much a superstar as Gronkowski.

More so, in fact. As a junior, Hernandez won the John Mackey Award, given to the best tight end in college football. That year – his last at the University of Florida – he had 68 receptions for 850 yards and scored five touchdowns, while winning the national championship. In three college seasons, Hernandez caught the ball 111 times for 1,382 yards and scored 12 touchdowns.

Yet team after team passed on him during the 2010 NFL draft.

The Patriots picked Gronkowski – who had missed his junior season with back surgery – ahead of Hernandez. Eventually, the truth came out: Hernandez was fond of smoking marijuana, enough that several teams shied from drafting him. Even though Hernandez admitted to failing just one drug test in college, and was open about his use when teams asked him about it, it wound up costing him dearly, as he went from potentially being drafted between the end of the first round and the beginning of the second round all the way to round four.

Hernandez blamed his marijuana use on having to deal with the death of his beloved father as a high-school junior. As a professional, he continued smoking, just as many other players do. In fact it was a key theme of his trial. Hernandez knew Lloyd, whom he has been found guilty of murdering, because he was his chief procurer of marijuana. Another witness, Alexander Bradley, testified that Hernandez bought as much as 4oz of marijuana a week from him, and would chain-smoke up to an ounce daily.

It wasn’t the marijuana that derailed Hernandez’s life, though. Remember that Aaron Hernandez was only 20 when he suited up for New England; only 17 when he left Bristol, Connecticut, for Gainesville, Florida, the death of his father Dennis still gnawing at him. His father was an imposing figure, known as “the King”, respected and feared in that gritty Connecticut town. Though Dennis, too, had his run-ins with the law, he managed to keep his two sons out of trouble.

With him gone, there was no one to guide young Aaron Hernandez. No one to steer him towards the righteous path, no one to watch over him, perhaps tap him on the shoulder and ask: Aaron, you sure you want to do this? What if it goes wrong?

Instead, Aaron Hernandez was surrounded by sycophants, lured by his star-making performances in high school and, later, college. Not just lackeys, either; his widowed mother married an ex-con, and he brought Hernandez into contact with a murky world of criminals and other shady activities.

Without Dennis there to keep watch over him, Hernandez fell into trouble, again and again; whether at home in Bristol or away in Florida, trouble seemed to find him, and he seemed to seek it. But every time, he walked away unscathed.

Not this time.

His name will forever be linked with the unlawful death of Odin Lloyd. Trouble has found him, and it won’t let this quarry go.