Rob Gronkowski Recalls Going Clubbing with 'Wingman' Julian Edelman the Night They Met (Exclusive)

"He was a rock star," Julian Edelman tells PEOPLE in a new interview alongside Rob Gronkowski

It only took one night for Julian Edelman to realize he and Rob Gronkowski were going to be "wingmen" for life.

The former New England Patriots teammates, who won three Super Bowls together with quarterback Tom Brady, sat down with PEOPLE recently to talk about their partnership with Bounty paper towels.

Gronkowski, 34, and Edelman, 37 are teaming up with Bounty for a Super Bowl campaign advertising the paper towels. The retired NFL stars will be on site at the game in Las Vegas this February, where they'll serve wings and paper towels to fans at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

During the sit down with PEOPLE, the former Patriots teammates also discussed the close-knit friendship they first developed when New England drafted Gronkowski in 2010.

“Whenever you draft a guy, the coaching staff breaks it in, ‘All right. This guy's this kind of guy,’ “ Edelman explained. “They get you familiar with who's coming into the room, because you're going to be spending a lot of time with each other. The one thing they said about Gronk is, ‘You're going to love this guy.’ And it was exactly true. He came in and was like a big teddy bear that scored a bunch of touchdowns.”

Edelman said it was “so fun” to have Gronkowski around the locker room for the nine seasons they played together in New England.

“He was a rock star,” Edelman told PEOPLE.

Related: Tom Brady Confirms He Was ‘Definitely Inebriated’ During Bucs' Super Bowl Boat Parade with Rob Gronkowski

Gronkowski said he and Edelman, who both played on offense for the Patriots, were “wingmen from the very beginning, from the second I got to New England.”

“We actually met each other off the field at an autograph signing,” Gronkowski recalled. “From there, that night we went out together and that's when we officially really became wingmen for life, when I was 21 years old. We went to a club called Splash. I was dancing all over the place. Julian was being Julian, and that's when our friendship and our wingman-type of style hit it off together.”

Related: Julian Edelman Calls 'BS' on Ex-Teammate's Story Claiming Rob Gronkowski Would 'Pass Out' at Patriots Facility

On the field, the receiving duo helped lead the Patriots to three Super Bowl victories in 2014, 2017 and 2018. Off the field, the former teammates now often cross paths working as analysts covering NFL games. Gronkowski first worked as an analyst for Fox’s NFL coverage in 2019, while Edelman has since appeared on Inside the NFL.

“We see each other at work in the green rooms and we watch the games,” Edelman said. “We'll cross over when he does his show, and he'll sometimes have segments on our show.”

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Edelman said that when Gronkowski commutes into Los Angeles for work, they’ll often meet up to order food and watch football together. “We were wingmen on the field, and then we were wingmen off the field,” Gronkowski said.

“We like to get in the hot tub and watch games in the hot tub, and then do a sauna, cold plunge flush — like, a full recovery cycle, you know?” Edelman laughed. “You change from — he was 21 and I was 23 when we first met. And now we get in hot tubs, order food, with our Bounty, and these little sauna cold plunge flushes together.”

And the NFL bros are excited to see each other again, this time in Las Vegas, when they pass out more than 4,000 wings and Bounty paper towels alongside fellow wingmen duos DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown of the Philadelphia Eagles, Damar Hamlin and Dane Jackson of the Buffalo Bills and Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins of the Cincinnati Bengals.

"I'm from Buffalo, New York," Gronkowski says. "So, I've always known about wings my whole entire life. That's why this campaign just made a total lot of sense for me."

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