It’s hard to find anyone who, six episodes into the series, hasn’t drawn a negative first impression of FX’s ‘American Sports Story,’ a limited series devoting its inaugural season to the rise and fall of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.
Clips have gone viral on social media, mostly shredding the historical inaccuracies that plaster each episode, along with the cringy, hard-to-watch portrayal of the real-life characters. Rob Gronkowski, an ex-teammate of Hernandez, who too is featured on the show, caught wind of a few clips and rejected FX’s depiction of himself. The scene in particular that’s spread like wildfire on the internet illustrates Gronkowski’s first encounter with Hernandez in New England’s locker room in 2010 — an “over-the-top” production in the eyes of the four-time Super Bowl champion.
“It was definitely over the top,” Gronkowski told FanDuel’s “Up & Adams” show. “… He definitely went over the top and I feel like it just fit the show perfectly though and all the other characters, and coach (Bill) Belichick and seeing Robert Kraft in this show as well. I feel like definitely like I said, over the top, a little exaggerated, that’s for sure. But it played the part for how this show was produced from all the clips that I saw.”
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The series, to put it simply, is FX’s latest failure in dipping its foot into the sports realm. In June, FX launched ‘Clipped,’ a poorly-produced recreation of the “Lob City” Clippers story, primarily focused on racist ex-team owner Donald Sterling. This time, the folks over at FX didn’t do their homework, again, and assembled a laughable cast of characters who — instead of accurately depicting the 2009 Florida Gators or 2010 Patriots — resemble an intentionally bad ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit.
Gronkowski did highlight a silver lining in the not-so-bad turnout that was FX’s dumpster fire production: Laith Wallschleger, a real-life friend of Gronkowski’s. Wallschleger was casted to play Gronkowski in the series, however, it’s not the first time that the 32-year-old was on set because of the Patriots legend.
“He’s actually a good friend of mine and he plays all my doubles in all my other commercials and kind of everything else I do,” Gronkowski revealed to Adams. “… He’s been my double. He’s shorter though than me, he’s not as jacked as me either that’s for sure. And he’s not as sweet either as me, but he’s all right. He does have the laugh down.”