Defensive back Christian Gonzalez sat out of the Patriots two sessions this week, leaving many wondering what the status is over his contract negotiations as things seem to have come to a standstill.
The fourth-year cornerback didn’t take part in last week’s joint practice against Indianapolis and he also wasn’t part of things in either of the two joint sessions this week against Philadelphia. Head coach Mike Vrabel has since tried to downplay Gonzalez’s absence. However, many wonder if this latest absence is contract-related or an injury, as Vrabel claimed last week.
Vrabel called Gonzalez “physically unavailable” following their game last week against Indianapolis. He also said earlier in the week that his cornerback is still working “on a return to play” plan after getting banged up late last week.
The play in question seems to be Gonzalez going down hard to the turf while covering teammate Romeo Doubs in practice last week. He hasn’t seen the field since.
Ben Volin of the Boston Globe reported Thursday that despite not being seen during either practice, Gonzalez was in the building, with the cornerback coming out onto the field after the team’s final joint session and spoke with several Eagles players. Volin reports that Gonzalez was “walking with a little limp,” adding some credence to his apparent injury situation.
Schefter: Two Sides Have “Not Had a Lot of Productive Conversations”
Meanwhile, from a larger-picture standpoint, the regular season is fast approaching. Yet, Gonzalez’s situation remains unresolved and that’s not a great sign heading into the season.
That leaves everyone wondering about where things are with the current contract negotiations. Things have quieted down on that front recently following Robert Kraft’s declaration that the team was willing to make him the “highest-paid” player at his position, with those comments coming prior to Seattle cornerback Davon Witherspoon finally getting his own deal done last weekend.
The hope was that it would provide the framework to potentially see progress made on finally getting him under contract. Instead, that hasn’t happened, which will now see the cornerback’s situation drag further into training camp.
Whether or not a deal might get done before the season is now a question, and based on recent comments this week from Adam Schefter, it seems he feels that with Witherspoon’s deal having gotten done, knowing the parameters, it shouldn’t be that tough to hammer out. Yet, the two sides seem to still be not on the same page.
“Well, first of all, I’m not so sure that that Gonzo deal is going to get done so quickly,” said Schefter. “Obviously there are the parameters in place and there’s the roadmap that Davon Witherspoon has presented, and obviously Gonzalez would love to get a deal, deserving of a new deal. And the Patriots would like to get a deal. But up until this past weekend, the two sides were not overly close, and they had not had a lot of productive conversations. So we’ll see if that works out or not.”
Schefter said that with the regular season closing in, he’s wondering if that might create some urgency between the two sides to finally bring this to a close.
“It’s going to be interesting to track here because, like I said, the parameters are in place. It should not be hard to get a deal done right now for Christian Gonzalez. And yet so far it has been. But we have the regular season looming here in a few weeks. There’s always a push by players and teams to get deals done before the regular season begins and we’ll see if these two sides can engage and get one done.”
With less than three weeks remaining until the regular season, the clock is definitely ticking.
(Editor’s Note: Portions of this article appeared in yesterday’s Patriots afternoon notebook.)
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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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Trade him!