Patriots edge rusher Matthew Judon came to training camp with an eye on reworking his contract and that finally happened late last week.
Judon agreed to a new deal with the team that guarantees him $14 million for this season and offers him the chance to make as much as $18 million when all is said and done. On Sunday, Judon said he recognized that the Patriots didn’t have to do anything to alter his deal but that he’s happy they saw the value in doing so.
“I haven’t been sad yet,” Judon said, via Chris Mason of MassLive.com. “Me and the guys upstairs got something done as far as my contract. I’m happy. They’re happy. We shook hands. And now we’re playing football. . . . I think it represents that they want to keep me around here or keep me happy. Or just [it’s] representing that they’ve seen what I did and they appreciate it, for the organization. When you do something like that — honestly, they didn’t have to if we’re being quite frank. They didn’t have to. They didn’t have to budge. They could have said, ‘You signed this. This is what you’re going to do.’ But they helped me out, so I can help the team out.”
Judon has only been working on a limited basis at training camp while working out the contract details. With that done, the veteran will likely be ramping things up in order to try for the same kind of productivity he’s shown since putting on a Patriots uniform.