Christian Gonzalez is one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL, and looking to get compensated accordingly. The New England Patriots, if team owner Robert Kraft is to be believed, want to meet those demands.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters ahead of the Patriots\u2019 first training camp practice on Saturday, Kraft said that the Patriots have a record contract offer on the table for the 24-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love Christian Gonzalez. We love him as a player, as a person. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve made an offer to him that makes him the highest-paid player ever to play that position in the NFL,\u201d Kraft told reporters on the Gillette Stadium practice fields. \u201cCoincidentally, it\u2019s the highest contract in Patriots franchise history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonzalez arrived in New England as the 17th overall selection in the 2023 NFL Draft, and since then has been a mainstay in the team\u2019s secondary. A one-time Pro Bowler and one-time All-Pro, he was arguably the club\u2019s most consistent performer the last two seasons and has established himself among the elite players at the cornerback position.<\/p>\n
He did all that while still on his rookie contract. The Patriots did exercise the fifth-year option in his contract earlier this offseason but Gonzalez is looking for a longer-term commitment than through the 2027 season.<\/p>\n
That is also what the organization is looking for, according to Kraft.<\/p>\n
2We\u2019re glad we drafted him and he\u2019s developed here, and we hope he will be with us for a long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Trent McDuffie currently holds the title as the highest-paid cornerback in football. The 26-year-old signed a four-year, $124 million contract extension earlier this offseason shortly after getting traded from the Chiefs to the Rams. The expectation is that Gonzalez as well as fellow 2023 first-round draft pick Devon Witherspoon will both surpass McDuffie\u2019s yearly average of $31 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Gonzalez is one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL, and looking to get compensated accordingly. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,397578,114133,397579,593,85],"class_list":["post-823517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","tag-new-england-patriots-news","tag-new-england-patriots-rumors","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}