The NFL on Fox team revealed how they pulled off a prank that involved moving the star tight end Rob Gronkowski Talk about a non-existent player.

During the recording of Fox NFL Sunday In Gronkowski’s first season as an analyst, the crew was assigned to talk about Rich Russo – a Dallas Cowboys tight end with missing fingers.

“We decided to play a little joke on our buddy Gronk,” an NFL insider said Jay Glazer said. “He thought we would go live with an additional segment. Everyone at Fox knows this isn’t real – except Gronk. And the premise was that I wanted to get the word out that the Cowboys are activating this great Pro Bowl tight end that doesn’t exist, and Gronk needs to talk about this tight end on live television.”

During the segment Michael Strahan And Howie Long raved about Russo’s importance to the team. When they handed it to Gronkowski, he rambled on about some non-specific observations. The crew finally burst out laughing in front of the host Curt Menefee went to Gronkowksi and told him it was all a prank.

“Is this live?” said a stunned Gronkowski. “Right when (the segment) was done, I wanted to say, ‘Guys, I’ve never heard of Rich Russo in my life. I’ve never heard of him in my life!”

After watching the prank on Sunday’s episode, Gronkowski admitted that the fake segment “made my head spin.”

Although the prank was relatively harmless, one could argue that it validates a major criticism of modern sports media. Some believe that many of the most popular faces in sports media – like Stephen A Smith – Don’t even look at the sports they claim to be experts at. In the Fox Sports clip, Gronkowski may have confirmed that analysts simply make things up when they’re unfamiliar with a topic. That could explain the industry’s more questionable views.

Watch above via Fox

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