The New England Patriots had a pair of Pro Bowlers last season in quarterback Drake Maye and cornerback Christian Gonzalez.<\/p>\n
The young, blue-chip duo played a major role in New England\u2019s turnaround and run to Super Bowl LX last season, and both appear positioned to be franchise pillars for Mike Vrabel\u2019s squad for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n
Keeping them in place long term, however, will require what are expected to be significant contract extensions. Speaking with reporters at the NFL Annual League Meetings in Arizona on Monday, owner Robert Kraft expressed confidence that both deals will eventually get done.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always try,\u201d Kraft said. \u201cWe have a salary cap, so we have a limit. So, we have to think what\u2019s best for the team in terms of timing of the signing and of course, the earlier you do it, it\u2019s believed it\u2019s more economically satisfactory. But we leave that to Mike Vrabel, Eliot Wolf and our people making contract decisions. We\u2019re lucky to have those two players and I hope and believe they\u2019ll be with us for the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drafted a year before Maye, the timing means a decision will have to be made first on Gonzalez\u2019s deal. Coming off a speculator postseason run \u2014 which ended with three pass breakups in the Super Bowl \u2014 the 23-year-old is now eligible to sign an extension as his current deal runs through next season, while the team can exercise his fifth-year option for the 2027 season.<\/p>\n
The Patriots\u2019 brass have made it clear this offseason that the plan is to extend their All-Pro cornerback \u2014 something executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf reiterated Monday on the Up & Adams Show.<\/p>\n
\u201cChristian\u2019s a tremendous player. It\u2019s no secret that we\u2019d like to try to get something done with him,\u201d Wolf said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great talent. He\u2019s one of the best players at his position in the NFL. He\u2019s developing as a leader\u2026 He\u2019s really just scratching the surface. He\u2019s already up there as an elite talent and we think he can improve even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Patriots will have another year before Maye then becomes eligible for an extension \u2014 one that could also reset the market at his respective position after the 23-year-old was named a second-team All-Pro last season. His rookie deal takes him through the 2027 season, with a fifth-year team option for 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots had a pair of Pro Bowlers last season in quarterback Drake Maye and cornerback…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52113,4834,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":["post-843556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-england-patriots","tag-football","tag-new-england","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","tag-new-england-patriots-offseason-coverage","tag-newengland","tag-newenglandpatriots","tag-nfl","tag-patriots"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116319954303732865","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}