NFL notebook: Gronkowski denies $100K bar tab

Rob Gronkowski is refuting reports that he racked up a hefty bill while partying at a casino nightclub in Connecticut last weekend.

TMZ reported Monday that the star New England Patriots tight end and a group of 20 associates ran up a tab in excess of $100,000 while at Shrine Nightclub at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn.

“Don’t always believe what you read. This is where 100k + would go to before that,” Gronkowski wrote on his Twitter account late Monday night, attaching a picture of him holding a giant charity check for $110,000 made out to Boston Children’s Hospital.

The check in the picture was dated February 17, 2017.

According to TMZ, which claims to have obtained an itemized receipt from Gronkowski’s night out confirmed by a public relations representative at Shrine, Gronkowski’s group purchased 160 bottles of champagne.

The website posted pictures of Gronkowski partying shirtless with rapper Flo Rida, who posted a video to his Instagram account of him performing alongside Gronkowski at the establishment.

TMZ also posted a pictured of Gronkowski’s alleged receipt, totaling $102,407. The website noted that it is “most likely the casino” that footed the bill, but added “it’s not like Gronk can afford it anyway.”

–Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp says he is experiencing memory loss and will donate his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation after his death.

The 44-year-old Sapp revealed his intentions on The Players’ Tribune. He said he wants football to “be better when I left than when I got into it.” The former Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ star defensive tackle is well aware of the history of concussions and developing symptoms of his own shook him.

“I’ve also started to feel the effects of the hits that I took in my career,” Sapp wrote. “My memory ain’t what it used to be. And yeah, it’s scary to think that my brain could be deteriorating, and that maybe things like forgetting a grocery list, or how to get to a friend’s house I’ve been to a thousand times are just the tip of the iceberg.”

Sapp played 13 NFL seasons — nine with the Bucs and four with the Oakland Raiders — and endured thousands of hits to the head during a career in which he appeared in seven Pro Bowls. He retired following the 2007 season.

–Detroit Lions defensive tackle Khyri Thornton has been suspended for the first six games of the 2017 season for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.

The 27-year-old Thornton will be able to rejoin the Lions following Detroit’s game against the New Orleans Saints on Oct. 15. The Lions have a bye the following week, meaning his first possible game action will be against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Oct. 29.

Thornton had 18 tackles and one sack in 13 games for the Lions last season. He signed a two-year, $3.3 million deal with Detroit in the offseason.

Thornton is eligible to participate in training camp practices and preseason games.

–Former football star O.J. Simpson has a scheduled parole hearing for July 20 and the possibility looms he could be freed from a Nevada prison on Oct. 1.

Simpson, who turns 70 on July 9, has been jailed at the Lovelock Correctional Center about 90 miles northeast of Reno for more than eight years after being found guilty of armed robbery and kidnapping in 2008.

The conviction stemmed from an incident at a Las Vegas hotel in September 2007. Simpson said at the time he was attempting to retrieve his own personal sports memorabilia that was stolen from him sometime in the mid-1990s.

Simpson was acquitted in the killings of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in 1995.