Tom E. Curran, Phil Perry, Amina Smith and Trenni take their picks for which young Patriot will be the biggest star moving forward.
What's the ceiling for Christian Gonzalez in New England? Based solely on his physical traits, the sky is the limit.
The Patriots' rookie cornerback made a strong first impression this week during organized team activities at Gillette Stadium. As our Tom E. Curran observed, Gonzalez is big for his position (6-foot-2, 200 pounds) yet moves with an impressive fluidity and quickness.
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"Even though he’s a longer guy, he just sinks and stops on a dime and breaks forward really smoothly," Curran wrote Wednesday of Gonzalez. "There wasn’t a noticeable throttling down, and then a Fred Flintstone hop-hop-hop gathering before starting forward. He moves like a big cat."
There's a quantifiable way to measure Gonzalez's athleticism, as well -- and it puts him in some elite company.
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During Wednesday's episode of NBC Sports Boston's Arbella Early Edition, our Phil Perry pointed to Relative Athletic Score, an all-encompassing metric created by founder Kent Lee Platte to rate prospects' athleticism entering the NFL Draft.
Gonzalez's score is a ridiculous 9.95 out of 10.
"There have been seven players in the past 20 years who have scored 9.9 or higher," Perry explained. "Christian Gonzalez is the latest. They include guys like Darrelle Revis, Marshon Lattimore, Patrick Peterson, Patrick Surtain (and) Jaycee Horn."
In fact, only one player on that list -- which Perry clarified is cornerbacks drafted in the first round since 2003 -- didn't go on to be a perennial Pro Bowler or rock-solid starter.
"The one name in that seven that didn't work out was C.J. Henderson, first-round pick out of Florida," Perry noted. "He really flopped, did nothing. Outside of him, though, you're talking Pro Bowl, legit, starting-caliber -- and better than that -- guys."
Does that mean we should put Gonzalez in the Pro Bowl already? Of course not. The Oregon product is just 20 years old -- the third-youngest player drafted in 2023 -- and likely will endure growing pains in his rookie season. We've seen more than a few top defensive prospects flame out in New England (Ras-I Dowling and Cyrus Jones come to mind) and Gonzalez will have to display impressive mature to thrive out of the gate in Bill Belichick's program.
If you're looking for a reason to be optimistic about the Patriots' future, though, Gonzalez should be near the top of your list.
"He can get into that group of maybe multiple Pro Bowls," Perry said. "That's how special he is physically. It's just, what else does he bring to the table?"
Check out Perry's full discussion with Curran, Trenni Casey and Amina Smith in the video player above.
