Another day has passed without a Christian Gonzalez contract extension getting completed in New England, and the lack of movement in that area led to head coach Mike Vrabel facing a series of questions about his star cornerback on Thursday.
Those questions are sure to continue being asked for as long as Gonzalez goes without a new deal, but Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer did take some time to “debunk” a couple of perceptions surrounding the negotiation.
“Mike Vrabel doesn’t really get involved in the weeds of the contract negotiation, and that’s an intentional thing,” Breer said on Early Edition. “That’s to maintain relationships with his players. It’s the same thing as the reason any of us would have an agent is because we don’t wanna get into the mud with our employer. We’ll let somebody else do that for us.”
Breer said that Vrabel intentionally keeps a degree of separation from the front office when contract negotiations are taking place.
“I think this is smart by Mike Vrabel,” Breer said. “He generally, in Tennessee and New England, has not been involved in the weeds on contract negotiations. So [the Gonzalez negotiation] is happening — to some degree — separate from him.”
Breer also dispelled the notion that Vrabel doesn’t value cornerbacks, a suggestion floated by Adam Schefter last week.
“The idea that Mike Vrabel doesn’t value the corner position is not correct,” Breer said. “I could just say that from having talked to a lot of people over the course of the last week, people who were with him in Tennessee who have no connections to the Patriots now and wouldn’t have any skin in this game at all, like it is not true that he doesn’t value the corner position. They’re very multiple on the back end. They ask a lot of their defensive backs in general. There’s a reason why he brought in Kevin Byard from Tennessee, because he puts a lot on his DBs.”
Breer said that Gonzalez must have naturally wondered where the notion of Vrabel not valuing cornerbacks came from, while noting that it almost certainly didn’t come from Vrabel himself.
