Patriots owner Robert Kraft says team has offered CB Christian Gonzalez 'the highest contract' in franchise history

Posted by Admin July 25, 2026 NFL

The New England Patriots want to keep Christian Gonzalez around for a long time. Team owner Robert Kraft gave us an idea of how much on Saturday.

Speaking with reporters at Patriots training camp, Kraft said the Patriots have offered their Pro Bowl cornerback a contract that would make him the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history. It would also reportedly be the largest contract in franchise history.

Via ESPN’s Mike Reiss:

“We love Christian Gonzalez. We love him as a player, as a person. That’s why we’ve made an offer to him that makes him the highest-paid player ever to play that position in the NFL. And coincidentally, it’s the highest contract in the Patriots’ franchise history. We’re glad we drafted him and he’s developed here, and we hope he’ll be with us for a long time.”

Gonzalez currently has two seasons remaining on his rookie deal after the team picked up his fifth-year option in April. The deal will pay him $2.3 million in 2026 and $18.1 million in 2027.

Via OverTheCap, the current highest-paid cornerback in the NFL is Los Angeles Rams star Trent McDuffie at $31 million per year. His four-year, $124 million contract is also the largest for a defensive back in league history and contains the most guaranteed money at $100 million.

As for the largest contract in franchise history, that title belongs to Gonzalez’s teammate, defensive tackle Milton Williams, with his four-year, $104 million deal. The title does not belong to Tom Brady, who never signed a deal larger than four-year, $72 million deal from 2010 to 2014 or made more than his $23 million in 2019 with the Patriots.

So after looking at that history, we can take Kraft’s words to mean that the Patriots have offered Gonzalez a deal of at least four years and $31 million per year.

Of course, it’s a general rule of thumb that if a team is telling the public how much it just offered a player, that deal isn’t happening anytime soon. If Gonzalez liked the offer, we’d be hearing that a deal was in the works instead.

The Patriots selected Gonzalez out of Oregon with the 17th overall pick of the 2023 NFL Draft and have watched him blossom into one of the top cornerbacks in the NFL, as the money would suggest. The 24-year-old was a vital part of the defense that ranked fourth in the NFL in points allowed last year and helped power the team to the Super Bowl.

Pro Football Focus ranked him as the 13th-best corner in the NFL last year, noting some inconsistency in the middle of the season but calling him “undoubtedly among the NFL’s elite in coverage” when everything is clicking.