Monday may end up being the day that nudges the Christian Gonzalez contract situation out of neutral.
The Patriots, at least according to Robert Kraft, are ready to make Gonzalez the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history. The snag has been figuring out exactly where that number should land, and one widely discussed possibility is that New England wants the Seattle Seahawks to first finish a deal with their own 2023 first-round cornerback, Devon Witherspoon.
That would give the Patriots a clean benchmark. Witherspoon would set the market, and then New England could move Gonzalez past it.
Monday matters because it is the deadline for roster bonuses tied to first-round rookie contracts. For the Patriots, three players are in line for those payments, including Gonzalez, who is due to have his bank account increase by $550,000.
Witherspoon is in the same boat for Seattle, only on a much bigger scale. His bonus is worth roughly $3.95 million, reflecting the fact that he went 12 picks earlier than Gonzalez.
The Seahawks can fit that number under the cap without issue, and it is already built into their calculations. The real question is whether they want to pay it as a lump sum or fold it into a new extension.
John Gilbert of SB Nation’s Seahawks blog, Field Gulls, argued that Monday could be the moment Seattle tries to get the Witherspoon extension done:
[B]ecause the bonus becomes earned Monday, at that point the associated $3,949,702 2026 cap charge connected to the bonus becomes locked in and would not be impacted by a extension between the two sides. In contrast, if the two sides reach agreement on an extension prior to Monday, the roster bonus could be wrapped into a signing bonus, allowing for a small bit of cash flow to be pushed into the future, along with part of the cap hit, which would potentially reduce the 2026 cash obligations of the team. …
Now, certainly the Seahawks can afford to pay in either scenario, but almost any business owner who has the option on whether to spend $26,145,000 instead of $30,094,702 now with the difference being paid at some point in the future will opt for the lower amount.
The logic is speculative, but the math is not. And with a soft deadline sitting right there, it has enough force to matter.
If Seattle acts, the ripple could reach New England. The Patriots may not care nearly as much about Gonzalez’s roster bonus, since it is only a fraction of Witherspoon’s, but anything that happens with the Seahawks is clearly being watched by both the Patriots and Gonzalez’s camp.
So Monday has a chance to be more than just another date on the calendar. It could be the day the Witherspoon situation moves, and with it, maybe the Gonzalez stalemate too - putting the 24-year-old closer to becoming the highest-paid cornerback in the sport and a long-term Patriot.
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