For Patriots CB Gilmore, Holding Out Would Be Too Expensive

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2 years ago at 3:00 pm ET

Timothy T. Ludwig - USA TODAY Sports

Stephon Gilmore’s status still remains a big question and this week former agent, Joel Corry, appeared on The Next Pats Podcast with Phil Perry discussing possible scenarios on the cornerback’s future.

Corry believes that the two sides will probably figure things out, but he also feels that Gilmore does hold a little bit of leverage.

“To a degree because Belichick, with Robert Kraft’s checkbook, didn’t make all these moves to be 7-9 again and miss the playoffs,” said Corry, when asked if he thought Gilmore had any leverage. “So if they don’t have Gilmore around, they don’t have another number one corner on the team. So yeah, it does give him a little bit of leverage.”

“But if I’m the Patriots, I’m hesitant about paying him on a going-forward basis because rarely do you have cornerbacks years 32, 33 and 34, which Gilmore would be 2022 and beyond, play at a Pro Bowl level. Champ Bailey did it for a couple years, he was a Pro Bowler, Charles Woodson at 35, but he was really kind of a hybrid slot corner then moved to safety the following year. You had Charles Tillman at 31 do it, and Richard Sherman at 31 in 2019. Other than that, the past ten years, you don’t have cornerbacks who are 31 and older go to the Pro Bowl. So what you’d be getting from Gilmore in a going-forward basis would most likely be diminishing returns unless he can defy the odds.”

One thing Corry did point out is that he believes Gilmore will be here when camp opens, primarily because holding out of the preseason doesn’t seem like the most financially viable move. Corry went over the numbers and Gilmore’s absence would cause him to forfeit a sizable amount of money if the veteran stayed away.

“The penalties now are a pretty good deterrent,” said Corry. “If you are a player who is on a veteran contract, then it’s $50,000 per day and that fine can no longer be forgiven, it’s mandatory and training camp is going to run anywhere from 35-40 days. So you’re looking, if you held out of training camp, upwards of a $2-million fine. The fines have increased dramatically to deter players from holding out.”

“Then there’s another penalty that Gilmore has. Since he signed his contract as an unrestricted free agent, he’s also subject to an additional fine that is mandatory of one week’s salary for each preseason game missed. So 1/18th of his $7-million base salary is slightly under $390,000. So that’s $390,000 salary, practically, for each preseason game that he misses. There are three preseason games, so you’re basically over a million dollars in addition to the potential $2-million in fines. So that’s a pretty dramatic fine that can’t be forgiven.”

“Obviously, he wasn’t happy with his contract or they wouldn’t have made the adjustment last year, where they essentially pulled $4.5 million out of this year’s base salary and put it into 2020, then added an incentive that he didn’t earn for $2-million for being defensive player of the year.”

As far as what he believes it might take to get Gilmore signed, Corry believes it would take a multi-year deal similar to what Darius Slay signed after Detroit sent him to Philadelphia in a trade last offseason.

“I would want a 3-year extension and to me, the minimum would be in the Darius Slay range,” said Corry. “Darius Slay at 29, when he was traded from the Lions to the Eagles, signed a 3-year extension at the time, which made him the highest-paid cornerback in the league for $50.05-million over the three years. The structure was very team-friendly, so I wouldn’t want his structure.”

“But basically, you’d have to get me in the $17-million per-year range on an extension and that would make Gilmore the 4th-highest paid cornerback in the league as the salary pay scale for that position is currently constructed.”

How things play out will obviously be at the forefront and Mike Reiss last week wrote that he believes the two sides appear to be in a position where reaching common ground remains a possibility.

Hopefully, we’ll avoid a lot of this potential speculation and the two sides will simply figure it all out before training camp gets here.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The above also appeared in our Sunday notes column🙂