Albert Breer on Christian Gonzalez’s Contract, Cowboys’ Cap Space and Australia Travels

All right.

Welcome in to Sport for Friday, September 4th.

We have just 5 days left until the kickoff of the 2026 NFL season that, of course, will happen on Wednesday night with the Patriots and Seahawks going at it at Loman Field.

Thursday, while the 49ers and Rams from Australia, and then, of course, a full slate of games just three days after that.

Cannot wait for week one.

Right here, right now, we've got a mailbag edition of the Your report.

We will start back up with some print editions of the mailbag a little later in the month.

We've had a lot going on, of course, over the last few weeks.

But I did want to answer some of your questions right here, right now.

And we will start with a question from at UH Garz.

How come the Rams are able to pay their quarterback, cornerback edge, and still signing Aaron Donald for $20 million for the year?

And the Patriots cannot sign one cornerback.

I would say, Bambata, the easiest way to answer that question is the Patriots just don't have a ton of experience, and this goes well beyond Mike Vrabel being in charge of Elliott Wolf running personnel.

They don't have a lot of experience paying guys.

At premium positions at the very top of the market.

In fact, there's almost no history of it.

Brady's contracts back in the day were creative and a little different.

They weren't traditional top of the market contracts.

And the guys who the Patriots played were were playing, quote-unquote, non-premium positions.

They paid, of course, some of those interior defensive linemen early in the dynasty, Vince Wilfork, Richard Seymour.

Um, they paid Devin McCourty, he's a safety.

They paid Dante Hightower, he's an off-ball linebacker.

They, of course, paid Rob Gronkowski.

He's a tight end.

So a lot of their bigger contracts came at non-premium positions.

Logan Mankin is one of the few they paid at the very top of the market.

He was a guard.

Um, so this is sort of new territory for New England in drafting a guy in the first round at a premium position , hitting on him, cause Christian Gonzalez is an all-pro now.

Um, and being in this position where the logical thing to do is to pay that guy at the very top of the market.

So we've seen, of course, teams that have experience doing these things, doing those sorts of things.

The Seahawks are a good example of it.

This calendar year alone, they've signed a star left tackle, Charles Cross, a star receiver, Jackson Smith Njigba, a star corner, Devin Witherspoon, and a star.

Defensive lineman, Leonard Williams, and they've paid all three of those guys at or near the top of the market.

You mentioned it with the Rams.

Now, the interesting thing about where the Rams are, yes, they've got, they brought in Miles Garrett on an existing contract.

They're paying Aaron Donald.

They traded for Trent McDuffie and gave him a contract.

They still have some business to take care of though as far as guys in contract years.

And a couple of those guys are at premium positions.

You got Pukunakua at receiver, you have Byron Young as an edge rusher.

Now he's not gonna get paid at the top of the edge rusher market, but he is an edge rusher, and those are expensive.

Kobe Turner, like a premium young defensive tackle, um, going into a contract year, so they do, do have some young players in their roster that they still have to take care of.

So it's not, it's not like they're without these sorts of issues.

But it'll certainly be interesting to see where the Patriots situation with Christian Gonzalez is going forward.

Again, some of the groundwork laid with the Witherspoon deal in Seattle, and there was some compromise in that deal.

Um, it set records in a lot of different areas.

It set records at, uh, from an average per year standpoint.

It set records on injury guarantee.

It set a record on the full guarantee for the position.

Um, but there were some compromises.

The APY wasn't a market reset.

It was an uptick on the market.

So, he didn't get the Will Anderson treatment there.

Um, he was up over $2 million less than $2 million a year over what Denzel Ward got in Cleveland.

Um, the, the, the, the, the structure of the guarantees made it so, and this sticks with the Seahawks' policy.

This 2028 guarantee doesn't become fully guaranteed until February of 2028.

Same thing with the guarantee in 2029.

Uh, McDuffie's guarantees in 2208 and 20929 had vesting dates a year early.

That's a little bit different, so, that was a compromise on the players' side, but they got it done.

And the Patriots are going to have to swallow hard and pay.

At the very top of the market in some of these categories and go over the top, maybe in one of them to get compromises in other areas.

We'll see if they're able to get that done.

Question number 2 comes from Bryce Harrison, that's at Bryce A423.

Bryce asks, Dallas just cleared all that cap space.

Do they have their sights set on a big trade or is it mainly for the future?

I, I would, I would tell you, Bryce, that these things generally can be bookkeeping things to create the possibility that you could do something.

But it's important to remember too that you can always roll that cap space over.

So where they're clearing the space to give them the flexibility to do something.

You're also taking that cap space and saying, OK, we can use it now, but we're also not precluding ourselves from using it in 2027 or 2028, or in any year going forward.

Um, Jerry put that out there, of course, during training camp, that they had had discussions on big ticket trades.

And I think the Christian Gonzalez thing is something to look at, and I don't think it's specifically Um, something that's going to happen here, but it's an example of how things can change and evolve over the course of time.

And if you do have a team that's in a weird contract situation with a star player, you can swoop in and take advantage of it.

And that actually happened last year where Dallas was on the other end of one of those, where they wind up trading Micah Parsons to Green Bay.

They had made big money offers to Parsons.

Um, it didn't work out, and so they wind up moving Micah Parsons.

They want to be on the other end of one of those, that's certainly a possibility.

Um, and I do think Jerry is in a position where he does want to be aggressive.

Um, you just having been around the Cowboys this summer, I can tell you they, that they're bullish on where they are from a roster standpoint.

I think there's an acknowledgement they need to stay healthy.

They're not tremendously deep all over the place, but they feel really good about their starting 22.

Um, and really good about the players that they have, you know, at a lot of the key spots.

So could they, uh, could they add a corner to the defense?

Could they potentially add some sort of pass rush help?

I think those things would be in play.

Um, and, you know, again, you look at sort of the makeup of the roster and, and where they are with CD Lamb and George Pickens and Dak Prescott, and bringing in Quinnin Williams.

Now they've paid Quentin Williams, you bring in Kenny Clarke, your offensive line, if Tyler Geiton holds up at left tackle, has a chance to be really good.

There are a lot of areas where the Cowboys have a chance to be really good.

I picked them to win the NFC East.

You can see the rest of our predictions next week.

Um, but, uh, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't rule out a swing.

I don't think this was done specifically because the swing is coming.

I think it just gives them the flexibility and the freedom to do that sort of thing.

Finally, question number 3, this is coming from Kevin that's at Shorty West 87.

What are your thoughts on the different travel schedules between the 49ers and the Rams, and will it actually have an impact?

This is interesting cause it's completely unprecedented territory.

So, I don't know.

I don't think the Niners know.

I don't think the Rams know.

And it's two different philosophies on it.

The 49ers' feeling on it is we need to go out over and acclimate our players to their surroundings over there.

We want to have them feeling comfortable, um, and having spent a week over there and adjusting to the time difference and adjusting to maybe some of the different things that they're gonna be facing on game day.

The Rams, and again, I don't think there's a right or wrong to this, and we'll see if either team's affected.

The Rams' feeling is we don't want this to affect our team past week one.

In other words, they don't need to reacclimate when they're coming back.

Now, neither team has a buy in week two, so they're both gonna have to come back and play games in week two.

And the Rams are looking at this and saying, if we can kind of roll through this and not have to change our routine.

And practice as if, you know, we're gonna be playing, and I think the timing would be 5 o'clock Pacific time, right?

If we can find a way to put all of those pieces together and go in quickly and not change our routine, then we come, when we come back, we won't have to re-acclimate.

So that could wind up serving us week two and beyond.

So, again, the Niners really focusing on that week one game and trying to acclimate for Australia, and trusting that when they get back to the States, they'll be able to re-acclimate.

The Rams making the the better plan would be just not to acclimate at all.

Just, just roll in, play the game, and then come back and you'll be better off in the long run for it.

We'll see which strategy winds up working out.

Appreciate you guys coming.

As always, you can leave more of your questions or comments down below on the YouTube page, or you can get to me on my social media at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert R.

Breer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

Next week, we'll be in a game week.

Can't wait to, to, to, to, to roll out all of our content for the first week of the NFL season and get to you with a couple more Breer reports next week as well.

We'll see you guys then.