Joey Chestnut Down For Gronk Bros Food Challenge After Hot Dog Eating Contest

The Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest might not be the toughest competition on Joey Chestnut's radar ... 'cause the greatest eater alive tells TMZ Sports he is down to go head-to-head with the Gronkowski brothers in an epic showdown!!

We spoke with the the 15-time champion ahead of the annual Fourth of July tradition ... and he says he feels healthy and ready to go as he looks to break his own world record of 76 franks.

"The goal is to win, but if the dogs are good, the weather is right, I feel like that record of 76 could definitively go down," Joey tells us.

In fact, Jaws says he's even broken 80 glizzys during preparation for the big event ... but notes that went down in "perfect" conditions, and anything can happen when it all goes down in Coney Island.

The last time we spoke with Chestnut, he said he was interested in taking on a fellow G.O.A.T. -- Tom Brady -- in an eating competition ... and while he didn't hear from the 7-time Super Bowl champ, his former teammate's fam wants to put him to the test.

"The Gronkowski brothers, they reached out," Chestnut tells us. "That might even be better, eating against the Gronk brothers, the Gronk clan. Those guys are beasts and maybe we can make that happen."

When we pitched the idea of Joey going up against Rob, Dan, Gordie, Chris and Glenn all at once ... he seemed 100% in.

"Those are big boys. That would be fun. I think that is gonna happen."