The Packers are still living with the consequences of their 2023 first-round choice, and Christian Gonzalez’s looming payday is only making the sting sharper.
Green Bay had the No. 13 pick as part of the Aaron Rodgers trade, and plenty of Packers fans were pushing for the team to take either Jaxon Smith-Njigba or Gonzalez. That wasn’t just revisionist grumbling after the fact. It was the mood before either player had even taken an NFL snap.
Since then, those concerns have aged badly for the Packers. Smith-Njigba has become a star in Seattle, picked up first-team All-Pro honors and played a major role in the Seahawks’ Super Bowl win last season. Gonzalez has followed a similar path in New England, and now he’s on the verge of a massive extension that makes Green Bay’s miss look even more expensive.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft said the team plans to make Gonzalez the highest-paid player ever at his position.
"We love Christian Gonzalez. We love him as a player, as a person, and that's why we've made an offer to him to make him the highest-paid player to ever play that position in the NFL," Kraft said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN."
And coincidentally, it is the highest contract in Patriots franchise history. So we're glad we drafted him, he's developed here, and we hope he'll be with us for a long time."
It’s easy to see why New England is ready to pay up. Gonzalez is coming off a Pro Bowl season and already has a second-team All-Pro nod on his résumé. After a rookie year wrecked by a torn labrum that limited him to four games in 2023, he bounced back in a big way, appearing in 30 of a possible 34 games since then and emerging as one of the league’s best young corners.
The production backs it up. Over the last two seasons, Gonzalez has broken up 21 passes and picked off two.
Pro Football Reference says quarterbacks have completed only 54.7 percent of their throws against him, for 1,038 yards, four touchdowns, two interceptions and a 75.7 passer rating. He’s 24 years old, too, which only adds to the appeal.
For the Packers, that’s the part that really hurts. Gonzalez would have fit right into a defense that already has Micah Parsons, giving Green Bay a premium pairing at two of the most important spots on the field. Instead, cornerback remains unsettled.
The Packers tried to address it this offseason by signing Benjamin St-Juste in free agency and then adding Brandon Cisse in the second round and Domani Jackson in the sixth. St-Juste and Cisse will battle Carrington Valentine for a starting job opposite Keisean Nixon.
That group should be better than what Green Bay rolled out last season, but there are still plenty of questions. Nixon has to show he can hold up as an every-down starter.
St-Juste needs to prove he can handle a bigger role after impressing in a backup spot with the Chargers last season. Cisse also has to show he’s ready to contribute right away.
Gonzalez would have solved a lot of that. Instead, the Packers are left watching him head toward a record-setting contract while their first-round decision from 2023 continues to hang over them.
That doesn’t mean Lukas Van Ness can’t still become a difference-maker. He starred in the offseason program, has shown encouraging signs before training camp and can still break out. Green Bay needs him to take that step this year, especially with Parsons out.
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