With the season opener drawing near, Christian Gonzalez and the Patriots still have not found the middle ground they need on a new deal, and the latest reporting suggests the gap is still wide.
On Monday’s Pat McAfee Show, ESPN insider Adam Schefter didn’t exactly offer much optimism about where things stand.
“These things always can change. But as of right now, talks are nowhere,” he said.
Schefter added that a late breakthrough can never be ruled out, but he said it would be difficult to see the two sides closing the gap in time for opening night.
“There always can be a last-second push and there always can be something that changes,” Schefter continued. “We’ll see how the two sides address it once the season’s underway.
But I think, as of right now, it’s hard to imagine that the two sides would be able to make up the difference to get a deal done by opening night. We’ve seen crazy things happen, and I’m sure there could be another push to try to see if they could salvage it and get it done.
But right now, as of yesterday, I was told it was not close. We’ll see if they can figure out anything by the start of the game.
It didn’t sound like that was going to be the case.”
Gonzalez, the Patriots’ first-round pick in 2023, has already established himself as one of the NFL’s top cornerbacks. The 24-year-old is pushing to become the league’s highest-paid player at the position, and the team has said it would support that outcome.
That benchmark currently belongs to Devon Witherspoon. Another 2023 draft pick, Witherspoon signed a four-year, $132 million extension with the Seattle Seahawks earlier this offseason. His deal set the standard for cornerbacks with an average annual value of $33 million and $101 million in total guarantees, both marks that no cornerback had ever topped.
Schefter said Gonzalez is seeking at least that level of compensation. But he also said the Patriots, despite public comments from owner Robert Kraft and de facto general manager Eliot Wolf, “have never been there” and “have not gotten close to there.”
There is still room for the situation to change, and one other insider thinks it eventually will. Benjamin Allbright of KOA Colorado posted Sunday that a “deal eventually will get done.”
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