FOXBOROUGH - Life without Christian Gonzalez.
The Patriots better get used to it.
At least, that could be the not-so-subtle message behind Gonzalez’ absence Tuesday.
The All-Pro corner didn’t participate in any capacity on the field for the first time since the start of training camp. He was a no-show during the joint practice with the Indianapolis Colts.
Was he injured?
That might be the reason, or be a convenient excuse.
At the end of Monday’s practice, Gonzalez went down hard on a play while covering wide receiver Romeo Doubs. At the time, it didn’t seem like much. But who knows?
Maybe that provided enough of a cover for Gonzalez to miss the go-round with the Colts due to injury.
In fact, Greg Bedard of the Boston Sports Journal reported Gonzalez suffered a “minor” ankle injury.
It’s also possible that play during Monday’s practice snapped Gonzalez to his senses about risking injury while trying to negotiate a contract extension with the Patriots. Maybe that was enough of a wake up call, given any kind of serious injury would stop talks in a hurry.
Or, Gonzalez has simply reached a boiling point with the negotiations.
He posted the song lyric “should have been done by now” on his Instagram account.
So the plot thickens.
Following the workout with the Colts, it was somewhat amusing listening to Patriots defensive tackle Milton Williams claim he didn’t know Gonzalez wasn’t out there with the defense until the two teams engaged in the two-minute drill toward the end of the practice.
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As it was corners Carlton Davis III and Charles Woods didn’t taking part in the team drills due to injury, so the Patriots went through the joint practice without their three top outside corners.
Marcus Jones was the only starting corner available.
So Colts quarterback Daniel Jones got a full dose of Kindle Vildor, Kobee Minor, Karon Prunty and Channing Canada attempting to mark his outside receivers.
“(Not having Gonzalez) definitely changes what they do on the back end,” Williams said. “They got a lot of trust in him, so they can change up coverages, and let ‘Zero’ do his thing.
“Y’all know the type of player he is. How special he is, what he means to our team. When he’s not out there, we’re going to feel it.”
Perhaps that was part of Gonzalez’ strategy, if he was in fact holding out.
To be fair, the ragtag crew of Patriots corners held their own, particularly on 11-on-11s, but that might have also been partly on the Colts, who don’t have much in the way of threats with Alex Pierce out.
Going into the joint practice with the Colts, it was easy to question what Gonzalez’ level of participation might be. It’s one thing to be fully engaged in padded practices against your own teammates. It’s another with not-so-friendly fire on the other sideline, having to navigate through a less controlled environment.
So, barring the validity of an injury, it appears Gonzalez took the more cautious route, protecting himself as the negotiations drag on.
Either way, Gonzalez has drawn a line in the sand when it comes to participating while attempting to secure a new deal.
He’s fine competing during Patriots practices. Not so much when there’s another team involved, especially if he’s not 100 percent.
That would mean he won’t play in any of the preseason games, or take part in next week’s joint practices with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Whether that extends into the season will be another checkpoint in the contract saga.
If there’s no new deal, it’s possible the regular season will also come into play.
As it stands, Patriots owner Robert Kraft revealed on the first day of camp that the team had extended an offer to Gonzalez that would make him the highest paid corner in the NFL.
Of course, Kraft didn’t offer up any pertinent details such as guaranteed money, or the length of the deal. Any of the above could be at the heart of why the deal hasn’t been consummated.
While Gonzalez has refused to discuss the situation publicly with the media, preferring to keep it in-house, it was interesting to hear him say last week that corners should be paid like wide receivers.
While the top cornerbacks are now getting paid upwards of $31 million per year, Seattle receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba just signed a four-year extension that pays him $42 million a year, which sets the bar for that position. Gonzalez suggested corners should be hitting that same range.
“I mean, we got a pretty tough job, I would say so,” he told reporters last week. “I mean, like I said, I’m not going to get into numbers, but we got a tough job and we got to guard those guys that know where they’re going and we’re going backwards.”
At the very least, it appears Gonzalez doesn’t want to agree to a deal until knowing what fellow corner Devon Witherspoon gets from Seattle.
Both players have the same agent, and both likely want to sit at the top of the cornerback wage scale.
So this could be a while.
The Colts receivers were certainly looking forward to going up against Gonzalez. It just didn’t happen.
Following the workout, Josh Downs said Gonzalez was a “consensus No. 1, No. 2″ corner in the league.
The Colts receiver had never gone up against him, but would have loved the chance.
“You want to compete against the best,” Downs said, “so we would have loved to do that as a group.”
Be it injury-related, or lack of a contract extension, or both, Gonzalez’ return remains TBD.
That’s not the most encouraging development for a defense whose aggressiveness with blitzes and in general revolves around having a shutdown corner.
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