Taking a deeper look into the actual defenses Gronk faced, I used computer vision to determine how far away defenders were from him. I measured three distances: the start of the play, when the pass was released and the end of the play. The goal here was to help diagnose either zone or man coverage. I tracked all plays where Gronk was either lined up in the slot or split out wide over the past three seasons -- he caught 105 balls on 299 targets (35.1 percent) in these circumstances. Then I split these plays into those where a safety or linebacker was in coverage and compared them to ones where he faced corners. The average distance at the time Brady released the ball was within 2 yards when Gronk faced safeties or linebackers. Gronk was able to garner twice as much separation versus corners. But remember: These are all plays where he lined up in the slot or split wide. When I looked at only plays when Gronk was the intended pass catcher in these formations, I saw that Brady's time to throw and air yards per target (11.7 yards vs. 13.3 yards) were lower when Gronk faced a linebacker or safety than a cornerback.