Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez is seeking a new contract as he heads into his fourth pro season.
While he’s been away from OTAs, he did participate in Drake Maye’s charity softball event over the weekend. His teammate, Marcus Jones, noted that it’s a “day-by-day thing.”
On Tuesday, head coach Mike Vrabel was asked about the situation and if the club was working toward resolving it so that he would participate in minicamp.
“I think the contract is the business and the professional side of this,” Vrabel said, via transcript from the team. “The personal side, I don’t want to let anything interfere with that. I want Christian to be ready when he comes back.
“I would imagine that he would be here next week. If he is, then we’ll coach him, be ready to move on, and get him ready to help us and help himself. Contracts are part of professional sports, I understand that. But I also know that those should remain private. Like any contract negotiation, you want to make sure that everybody feels like they get something out of it, and I’ll leave it at that.”
Gonzalez, who turns 23 later this month, has registered three interceptions and 24 passes defensed in his 34 career games. He had seven CDs, a sack, a forced fumble, and an interception in New England’s four 2025 postseason games.
Patriots tight end Julian Hill’s season ended before it began with an injury in a voluntary offseason practice, and head coach Mike Vrabel said today that he feels terrible about it.
Hill signed a three-year, $15 million contract with the Patriots in March after spending the last three years in Miami, and Vrabel said Hill had already made an impact with his hard work this offseason.
“Julian won’t be able to play this season, plain and simple. Devastating. Awful. I really enjoyed the person and want to have him around here as much as we possibly can,” Vrabel said. “He won’t be able to play this season. That’s just disappointing because of the impact he made in a short amount of time with his teammates, the person that he is, the way he practiced. We want Julian to be a part of us as much as possible, but he’s not going to do that on the field this year.”
The Patriots have not given any details about the specific nature of Hill’s injury, but it is reportedly to his knee.
The 6-foot-4, 251-pound Hill originally made the Dolphins’ roster as an undrafted free agent in 2023 and developed into a very good blocker and a decent receiver, and the Patriots had high hopes for him this season. Those hopes will have to wait until next season.
Patriots wide receiver A.J. Brown is ready to get to work.
New England head coach Mike Vrabel confirmed today that Brown passed his physical and will participate in the Patriots’ voluntary practice today.
As everyone learned when the Raiders-Ravens Maxx Crosby trade fell through, trades in the NFL aren’t official until the traded player passes his physical. But Brown is now good to go.
Vrabel, who previously coached Brown in Tennessee, said he’s excited about Brown showing what he can do.
“He loves football. He has a physical skill set. I think he has great body control and can be strong at the catch point,” Vrabel said. “He’s been a productive, consistent player.”
The Patriots will get their first look at that skill set on the practice field today.
Wide receiver A.J. Brown’s final season with the Eagles featured a lot of talk about his dissatisfaction with the team’s offense and the nature of his relationship with quarterback Jalen Hurts.
Brown weighed in on the latter topic during an interview with Maria Taylor after Monday’s long-awaited trade to the Patriots. Brown said he doesn’t understand why there was so much attention paid to his relationship with Hurts, but acknowledged that the two men are “not as close as we once were” by the end of their final season together.
The receiver insisted “that didn’t stop anything” the team was trying to do on the field and said there was no particular incident that led to the change.
“Nothing happened, people just grow apart,” Brown said. “Nothing happened between me and him, or our families, wives, anything. Nothing like that ever happened. Life happens and you just look up sometimes and you just you find yourself drifting away and that’s fine. And I think both parties accepted that.”
Brown said he wants Hurts to do well and “accomplish everything his heart desires,” but he’ll no longer have a hand in helping Hurts or the Eagles reach any of their goals.
New Patriots wide receiver A.J. Brown couldn’t be happier to reunite with head coach Mike Vrabel.
Brown said in an interview with Maria Taylor that it wasn’t always easy to play for Vrabel when the two were in Tennessee together during Brown’s first three NFL seasons. But Brown came to appreciate the reasons that Vrabel is such a tough coach.
“When I first got to Tennessee he was extremely tough on me, and I didn’t really understand what he was trying to do,” Brown said. “Obviously he was trying to push me to become the player I am today, but he was just so tough. I remember a conversation, I was talking to him, like, ‘You don’t have to humble me. I came from humble beginnings.’ I just never understood, he stayed on me all the time.”
Brown said that as he spent more time with Vrabel, he began to learn that Vrabel was hard on him because Vrabel genuinely wanted to get the best out of him.
“He was holding me accountable, and we grew close over the years,” Brown said.
Asked what Vrabel said to him yesterday when the trade became official, Brown said it was something he heard from Vrabel plenty of times in Tennessee.
“Get open and catch the ball,” Brown said. “That’s what he always says.”
