INDIANAPOLIS -- Heat fans might call it blasphemous for Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez to refer to Rob Gronkowski as “LeBron” and Gronkowski say Hernandez fits the Dwyane Wade role.

Others might call it the modern NFL reality. A tight end tree with roots in John Mackey, and a trunk of former basketball player Tony Gonzalez now extends to big branches like Gronkowski and Hernandez that threatens to change strategies on both sides of the ball.

(Don’t worry about that high ankle sprain Gronkowski sustained in the AFC title game. Expect him to play. He practiced Thursday in a limited capacity after not practicing Wednesday.)

New England brings another scorching offense into the Super Bowl powered by the NFL’s No. 2 passing attack because it has two tight ends wreaking havoc in the red zone and causing matchup problems all over the field. Hernandez’s numbers of 79 catches, 910 yards and seven touchdowns — a great year for most tight ends — pales next to Gronkowski’s 90 catches, 1,327 yards and 17 touchdowns.

Hard enough to deal with offenses that have one such tight end with so much size and athleticism. Just ask Perry Fewell, Giants defensive coordinator, whose defense just faced a Packers offense with Jermichael Finley and San Francisco’s with Vernon Davis.

“The matchups make it difficult,” Fewell said. “Even though they’re called tight ends, they have wide receiver skill set. You didn’t face tight ends like that back in 1998. If you did, you only faced one or two during the course of a season. A Shannon Sharpe, Gonzalez. Now, we face, six, eight guys — Jimmy Graham, Jermichael Finley, Vernon Davis. And they’ve [San Francisco] has the other guy [Delanie Walker], who is really good. That’s what makes it so difficult.”

How difficult? The Giants didn’t do too badly against Davis. He still caught a 73-yard bomb up the sideline for one touchdown and added a 28-yarder.

The week before, Davis and New Orleans’ Graham combined for 12 catches for 283 yards and four touchdowns, hammering home that Fewell and his brethren face an ever-increasing group of John Mackeys.

Ditka’s impact

Before the Colts’ Mackey, some tight ends, most famously Mike Ditka, could run over defensive backs. Mackey, 6-2, 224, was the first who could truck a defensive back one play and burn him deep the next play. He twice averaged more than 20 yards per catch. On his most famous touchdown, the 75-yarder in Super Bowl V, Mackey was in place to catch the twice-tipped pass because he was running the deepest pattern.

“Now, when it all stacks up, he’d be one of the smallest size-wise, but one of the most powerful in presence,” said Sylvia Mackey, the widow of one of the major forces in the NFL Players Association’s early days.

That Super Bowl catch came against Dallas, coached by the late Tom Landry. Landry culled basketball courts for many an NFL player, among them cornerback Cornell Green, wide receiver Pete Gent (author of North Dallas Forty) and wide receiver Percy Howard.

In Super Bowl X, when Pittsburgh’s physical defensive backs battered Golden Richards into uselessness, Landry inserted the 6-4 Howard, a football and basketball man at Fort Lauderdale Dillard High but only a basketball guy at Austin Peay. Howard brushed off an attempted chuck by master chucker Mel Blount to get wide open for a 34-yard touchdown, his only NFL catch.