It’s an important week of practice for the New England Patriots, headlined by joint practices with the Philadelphia Eagles on Wednesday and Thursday.
One of the biggest storylines will be whether Pro Bowl cornerback Christian Gonzalez is back on the field.
Gonzalez was a full participant through the first 13 training camp practices but has missed each of the last five, including Tuesday’s walkthrough. The team has maintained that the 24-year-old’s absence is injury-related.
Over the weekend, Seattle’s Devon Witherspoon reset the cornerback market, signing a record-breaking four-year deal worth up to $132 million, including more than $101 million in guaranteed money.
Witherspoon and Gonzalez were both first-round picks in the 2023 NFL Draft, going fifth and 17th overall, respectively. They’re also represented by the same agent, Reginald “Reggie” Johnson of Elite One Sports Management, making Witherspoon’s deal a natural comparison point for Gonzalez’s extension.
Could Gonzalez’s deal be coming soon? And what has been the holdup?
Former Patriots safety Devin McCourty joined The Greg Hill Show on WEEI as part of the 24th annual WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, presented by Arbella Insurance (donate online here), to discuss Gonzalez’s situation (full interview below).
“Giving up that big money is tough, man! It’s one of my biggest gripes with how ownership works and how they make guys wait,” McCourty said.
“Hopefully it doesn’t take this long, but a lot of these situations turn into a week before the season or a day or the morning of the day that the season is going to start. It’s how the league works with these contracts. You hope once you see Devon Witherspoon get it done in Seattle, you are just hoping that’s the next wrinkle and now Gonzo gets it done.
“But sometimes, a guy gets a deal done, and one side is sitting there, and that’s the expectation, and the other side is like, well damn, I didn’t think that’s what the contract was going to be, so now that changes the conversation a little bit, too. Hopefully in the next week this contract gets done. I know he got banged up in the practice the other day. But again, once it gets to this time of year, how banged up are you? Could you go?”
McCourty, who dealt with his fair share of contract negotiations during his 13-year career, said he has no problem with Gonzalez sitting out if the absence is contract-related and the cornerback is being cautious.
“I’m all for guys saying, hey, I probably would go normally, but I don’t have a contract, and now I just got dinged up, and I can feel how close that is to if I do get dinged up, it changes the conversation dramatically,” McCourty said. “So I hope this gets done, but I can easily see this going all the way up until the night before in Seattle. I can see this getting done in a few days. It’s just you never know with these contracts. I think it will get done; I just can’t tell you when it will get done. It’s hard to get a sense for it.”
As for what could be holding up the deal, McCourty believes it could come down to the language.
“My guess would be language. I have to imagine that the Pats knew kind of where they were going to be at in average per year and new money. A lot of time with these deals, it’s the language,” McCourty said.
“I know we generally look at, alright, this is the total, this is the average per year, this is the guaranteed, but within there is when things get guaranteed. Is your second or third year fully guaranteed? Is this guaranteed by this day of the new league year? It’s those little perky things and the language that, if you get into the weeds of it as a player, like I think guys should be, those are things that you are going to push to get. Those are things you have to go back and forth on. I know the contracts that I’ve done, it was that kind of language that, as a player, I always pushed for.”
Witherspoon’s new deal could provide a framework for Gonzalez, but that doesn’t mean a deal is imminent. As McCourty noted, the finer details can take time to work through.
For now, all eyes will be on whether Gonzalez returns to the field for the joint practices this week, while negotiations continue behind the scenes.
