Christian Gonzalez’s contract situation continues to linger, and it appears there may be some frustration brewing.
Vrabel was asked directly about his fourth-year cornerback on Thursday night, with Gonzalez having missed time since Monday following a practice rep against Romeo Doubs, when reports said he hit the ground pretty hard after the play.
Gonzalez was not out there against the Colts during the team’s joint practice on Tuesday, nor was he present during Wednesday’s walkthrough.
That raised the question of whether his absence was by choice or potentially due to health.
Because Vrabel had not spoken since before the joint practice, Thursday night was the first opportunity reporters had to ask him about the status of his star cornerback.
When asked when he knew Gonzalez wasn’t going to be there Thursday night, Vrabel cut things off with a fairly terse response.
“Christian was a group of many players that weren’t here tonight,” said Vrabel.
He was later asked in the press conference for clarification, specifically whether Gonzalez suffered an injury in Monday’s practice and whether that’s why he hasn’t been seen since.
“Christian was unavailable, physically unavailable for the practice,” said Vrabel. “That’s the clarification. Just like other players that I told to have treatment, and everybody has a plan here.”
“There were other guys that were in that same category. If you want to list the names: Christian Ellis, [Brenden] Schooler, [Harold] Landry, [Christian] Barmore, etc. So make sure they’re all included. They were all in the same group of what they did.”
Based on that answer, Vrabel is implying his absence was indeed health-related.
Still, given Vrabel’s exasperation as he answered, it seems like even he’s frustrated with where things are. There hasn’t been much discussion since Robert Kraft came out and said the team is prepared to make him the “highest paid player ever” at his position, and the fact that Gonzalez came out afterward and said he didn’t want to handle his negotiations through the media wasn’t exactly an encouraging sign.
As a result, it’s starting to feel like the negotiations over his contract still aren’t in a particularly good place at this point in the preseason.
Vrabel clearly knows how much better his football team is when Gonzalez is out there, which is likely only adding to whatever irritation he might be feeling. Unfortunately, on Thursday night, instead of providing clarification, his answer didn’t instill much confidence that the two sides are any closer to a resolution.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
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