No team in the NFL exceeded expectations in 2025 like the New England Patriots. In Year 1 under head coach Mike Vrabel, the Patriots went 17-4 overall, fresh off one of the most brutal two-year stretches in franchise history.
When you split New England’s record down to games started by cornerback Christian Gonzalez? The jump gets even more staggering.
It feels like forever ago now, but Gonzalez missed over 50 days of team practices and the first three games of the regular season due to a hamstring injury that became a source of rampant speculation. It’s not uncommon, of course, for athletes to miss multiple weeks with a soft-tissue injury.
Two months? That felt a little overcautious at the time, especially with the Patriots’ defense looking shaky out of the gates during the team’s 1-2 start to the season.
Gonzalez was finally cleared to return for New England’s Week 4 home game against the Carolina Panthers. The Patriots rolled to a 42-13 win that day, stunned the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park a week later, and went on to win 10 consecutive games to position themselves among the AFC’s elite.
All told, the Patriots went 16-2 in Gonzalez’s 18 starts this season, with the only losses coming at home to Buffalo in Week 15 and in Super Bowl LX against the Seattle Seahawks. The 23-year-old might’ve been New England’s best player throughout the playoffs, too, following his game-sealing interception in the AFC Championship Game in Denver with a dominant performance against Jaxon Smith-Njigba and the Seahawks.
Every football fan with a pulse came out of Super Sunday thinking the same thing: Gonzalez just made himself a lot of money.
The Patriots can’t afford to botch Christian Gonzalez’s looming contract extension
NFL players on rookie contracts need three years of service time to become eligible for an extension. For star first-round picks like Gonzalez — and Drake Maye coming up in 2027 — that pay raise typically comes sooner rather than later. For the team, it’s good business, as it rewards a cornerstone draft pick with a lot of new money, while keeping him as far away from free agency (and ahead of the market) as possible.
The first step with Gonzalez will likely come on May 1, the deadline for teams to pick up fifth-year options on 2023 draft picks. Spotrac currently estimates Gonzalez’s number to be $17.5 million, which would be fully guaranteed and against the team’s salary cap in 2027.
That number’s obviously a no-brainer for the Patriots, as shut-down cornerbacks of Gonzalez’s caliber make at least $20 million per year. New England will likely pick up Gonzalez’s option to buy extra time, and then work on extending his deal to keep him in Foxboro into 2030.
Gonzalez’s next deal will obviously make him one of the highest-paid corners in the league, and almost certainly the richest in Patriots history. That’s how modern NFL business works, and when you hit on a premium position like this in the draft, you do what’s necessary to lock that player up long-term.
But this, of course, is Robert Kraft’s Patriots, who are notorious for avoiding these kinds of whopper contracts. Milton Williams’ four-year, $104 million free agent contract was the highest in franchise history based on average annual salary, and his number should be dwarfed by that of Gonzalez and Maye over the next two years.
The Patriots won’t screw Gonzalez’s contract up this offseason, right? Bleacher Report called these looming negotiations a potential worst-case scenario for Vrabel’s second offseason at the helm.
“Gonzalez will be extension-eligible this offseason, and whenever contract talks get underway, the possibility of a holdout looms. The good news is that Gonzalez doesn't sound like a player who would consider sitting out or demanding a trade. …
A worst-case scenario, though, would see Gonzalez missing valuable offseason time and then either not being present or not at 100 percent for a stretch in the regular season.”
There’s no arguing this one. The Patriots can’t afford to mess around with a 23-year-old game-changer like Gonzalez. Any question marks stemming from how he came back from his hamstring injury over the summer were wiped out by his breakout season, especially during the playoffs.
New England should be planning for market-setting contract extensions for both Maye (in 2027) and Gonzalez (this offseason). It appears those plans are already underway. According to CBS Sports' Joel Corry, the Patriots will roll over an NFL-high $47.27 million from 2025 into the new league year.
This one’s about as straightforward as it gets. There’s no reason to play hardball with Gonzalez on his extension, as he'll end up being a bargain at his new number in a few years. Any type of holdout or standoff would be a brutal look for the Patriots, and would rightfully have fans panicking about Maye’s looming mega extension down the road.
Robert Kraft has some checks to write, including what should be a big one at around $30 million per season for Gonzalez this year. Here’s hoping he has the pen ready.