The Patriots finally have a deal in place with Christian Gonzalez. The All-Pro cornerback, who had been in talks with the defending AFC champs for most of the offseason, agreed to terms on a four-year extension early Tuesday morning.
Gonzalez and the Pats agreed on a four-year, $135MM pact that includes $102MM guaranteed, NFL insider Jordan Schultz reports. Gonzalez eclipses Devon Witherspoon to become the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback. Gonzalez, who stopped short of guaranteeing he would play in Week 1 without a new deal, made the trip to Seattle. Talks intensified Monday night, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler notes.
Discussions between Gonzalez and the Patriots had quieted recently, Schultz adds, before this seminal reignition. The agreement comes nearly a month after the Seahawks made Witherspoon the league’s highest-paid CB at $33MM per annum. Gonzalez, who shares an agent with the versatile Seahawks standout, was then connected to wanting an extension that came in well clear of Witherspoon’s. That did not end up coming to fruition, but team and player have a lucrative deal in place that will tie Gonzalez to New England through the 2031 season.
Witherspoon and Trent McDuffie were previously the only corners to score a $100MM guarantee. This will assuredly not represent Gonzalez’s guarantee at signing, as no CB is tied to any full guarantee north of $60MM, but this is a hefty sum. How the deal is structured will, of course, be significant here. But this ends a stalemate that had lasted months.
The Pats are set for their season opener against the Seahawks on Wednesday night, and the subject of a Week 1 deadline loomed in these talks. Gonzalez was not planning to negotiate in-season. This certainly could have been a leverage tactic by a player whose only weapon here would have been withholding services. Even that would have been a risk, as few players have followed through on threats to miss out on game checks.
The Pats, who have been more amenable to big-ticket extensions under GM Eliot Wolf than they were under Bill Belichick, join the Seahawks in having a wide receiver and corner making at least $30MM per year (Seattle’s Witherspoon accord followed Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s, and this Gonzalez agreement comes three-plus months after New England absorbed A.J. Brown’s $32MM-per-year contract).
More to come.