Long, long, long entry ahead, Don't read if you're not a football fan. Consider yourself warned.

The New England Patriots used the 42nd 2010 draft pick on Rob Gronkowski. The pick immediately after this was the Baltimore Ravens, who used it on Sergio Kindle, who missed all of 2010 with a skull fracture, and is on special teams while he returns to the game after a year off. I'm willing to chalk so far up to extenuating circumstances of that fracture, but suffice to say that all this from an early pick has been disappointing, and feeling like a bust.

But while that got me thinking about this, that's not the interesting part - you can say that about every team that's ever drafted a maybe-bust right after a star. The interesting part is that, given in this same draft, the Ravens also picked out two tight-ends, it's safe to say they were shopping for TE's. Gronkowski may well have been on their list, which is very arguable since he was the first tight-end picked that year, Ozzie Newsome is a hall-of-fame tight-end, so knows TE talent when he sees it, and after Gronk was picked, their next choices for the position were lower-down on the radar than him, so wanted to pick Kindle, as he was a projected first-round linebacker.

If we take this scenario though in which the Ravens wanted Gronk, the Ravens could've grabbed him. They traded their first-round pick, which, after one second-round pick, was the only pick they had until round five after trading third, fourth, and fifth round picks to the Cardinals for Boldin, to the Broncos, in exchange for Denver's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks. They used these picks to pick out Kindle, and our current two tight-ends, Ed Dickson and Dennis Pitta. One of these three is looking to be a bust, and the other two are tight-ends. Pick almost any two tight-ends in the game right now, Gronk is worth both of them and more, so the Ravens wouldn't have, in-theory, lost a whole lot if they had kept their pick.

Lets look a little deeper though. Pitta and Dickson weren't exactly high-position picks, and while they're not having huge years like Gronk or Hernandez or Graham or anyone, they are both top twenty tight-ends, which is a testament to the training they've received from the TE coach Wade Harman, and former Ravens star tight-end, class act, and all-around nice guy(Find me another receiver who, in the season after joining a new team, will buy a full-page in a local newspaper to thank his old team and fans when he plays them) Todd Heap. Gronk has become a top receiver in the NFL with what has happened. But if two fairly talented tight-ends could do that with practically no prior NFL experience with that coaching from those two, imagine what Gronk would do.

So now, Ed Dickson, the first of the two tight-ends drafted by Baltimore, is drafted by New England instead. With the pass-heavy New England offense, he makes a bigger impact, but is still fairly quiet in comparison to Gronkowski. Meanwhile, with the coaching of a tight-end who has the touchdown, yardage, and reception numbers of more than a few HoF TE's, and I'm willing to say will become a HoF TE once he retires, Gronkowski makes up for the fact the Ravens are a ground-oriented offense by being even more incredible in Charm City than in Foxborough.

He ignites Baltimore's passing attack, which becomes a lot more potent with the quadruple threat of Torrey "Deep Threat" Smith, Anquan Boldin, one of the best TE's in the game, and Dennis Pitta, the other Ravens tight-end we'll assume they manage to get, who, with Gronk drawing all the defensive attention, becomes a secret weapon who's always open, who together, make Joe Flacco much better than he has been this year, as a lot of his incompletions can be accounted to dropped balls, which a receiver as incredible as Gronk doesn't do. This pushes Joe into the elite echelon of QBs like everyone thought he'd go to after last year, and makes the Ravens arguably the most complete team in the league, with Rice-Ricky's Leach-led running attack, Flaccowski's passing attack, and the monster that is the Ravens D.

Suddenly the matchup this weekend looks a lot more one-sided, because while the Pats can pass well, the Ravens can pass, run, and defend well. Even the superbowl begins to look one-sided - the Packers have a monster air attack, but not much on the ground or defense. Meanwhile, the Ravens tear up the ground, are capable in the air, and destroy enemy offenses as always. Ravens win the superbowl, Gronk is the successor to Todd Heap, Flacco is hailed as a new Johnny Unitas after this all-star Ravens team wins consecutive superbowls, and the Ravens get a strong argument to be the team of this decade.

That's just the most evident layer though - that draft pick was traded to Denver, as said before. It was used on none other than Tim Tebow. Yes, that Tim Tebow. Now, Denver probably still could've grabbed him with their second-round pick that Baltimore used to get Kindle, as he was projected as a third-round pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars. Lets say though that he was instead grabbed by the team who grabbed a second-round QB - the Carolina Panthers. For simplicity with this, we'll also assume the Broncos drafted Jimmy Clausen, who sucked in Denver as much as Carolina when he replaced Orton, so Kyle Orton remained in Denver as the starter.

Back to Carolina though, now Tim Tebow would've been started after Matt Moore had his concussion against the Giants. Here we can go one of two ways - either Tebow does incredible there, and the Panthers do much better. But I haven't followed them, so I don't really know enough to follow this route, so lets go the other way. Which is that Tebow sucks, and it really was the magic of Mile High that made him a sensation.

In which case, the Panthers draft Cam Newton again, and trade Tebow away to one of the teams this season that needed to pick up a QB from necessity this season - either the Bears, the Chiefs, or the Colts. It's boring to assume he just sucked and these teams did poorly this year again, so lets assume that 2010 is the year of the Tebow, and the Tebow Magic came to whichever team he went to.

Sadly the story for the Bears is the same as the panthers for me, so lets focus on the Chiefs and Colts. The Chiefs would've ended up the same as the Broncos have this year without Tebow, because if they finished with an 8-8 record, which would've been possible if they pulled Palko at the same time they actually did, and Tebow did what he's done, since they had the tiebreaker in the division if memory serves. So they'd go on to face the Ravens, who get the #1 seed instead of the Patriots, because thanks to Gronk, they're the Saints in that they can run and throw, but with a powerhouse defense, where he loses to the undefeated-at-home three-headed monster that is the Gronkified Ravens. If he went to the Colts, then maybe they wouldn't have finished so terribly this year, which means that Andrew Luck goes to St. Louis instead, which we'll stop there because future speculation isn't as fun, but also means that, as good as John Elway is, Tebow gets coaching from a QB much better, and arguably one of the all-time greats, in Peyton Manning after he returns this offseason, and now with the double-threat of the run game that is Tebow, and a passing game built by none other than Peyton Manning working in the system designed by Peyton Manning, the Colts become the biggest threat to the Gronkimore Ravens Dynasty in the AFC, and completely reignite the Ravens-Colts rivalry that stemmed from the Colts being moved to Indy, while the Steelers rivalry fizzles out after the Ravens, given they won twice this year with this roster, annihilate the Steelers from this year onward.

And all if Ozzie Newsome decided not to trade to Denver. Linchpins are cool stuff, huh?

[Please only use spoiler tags for spoilers. -Bfa]