Pats Pulpit
An All-Pro in his second season in the NFL, Gonzalez did not make PFF’s Top 25 Players Under 25 list.
Even though they won only eight combined games over the last two seasons, the New England Patriots have some young stars on their roster. While quarterback Drake Maye is the big name among them, and understandably so given his position and the promise he showed as a rookie in 2024, none shines brighter than Christian Gonzalez.
Just don’t tell Pro Football Focus.
The oft-quoted website released its list of the Top 25 players under 25 entering the 2025 NFL season on Monday, and neither Gonzalez nor any of his teammates where anywhere to be seen.
Players like Drake Maye getting snubbed, at least in this year’s version of that list, does make some sense; there is plenty of young talent in the NFL that performed at a more consistent level so far. Gonzalez, however, is a snub of the highest order.
A first-round draft pick by the Patriots in 2023, the 22-year-old was one of the league’s top-performing cornerbacks during the 2024 season — his first full year after missing the final 13 games as a rookie due to a shoulder injury. As a result of his play, Gonzalez was voted second-team All-Pro, a finalist for the Comeback Player of the Year award, and widely recognized as one of the best players in football that his position has to offer.
And yet, PFF went for a contrarian perspective for much of the year. Three weeks into the season, he was ranked 95th among 112 qualifying cornerbacks despite more than just holding his own against the likes of Ja’Marr Chase, DK Metcalf and Garrett Wilson; we wrote about this rather curious ranking at the time.
Gonzalez did improve to 15th on the list by the time the season was up, but even that feels low. For example, of the players above him, only first-team All-Pro Derek Stingley Jr. allowed a lower completion percentage; only three players (Stingley Jr., Marlon Humphrey, Terell Smith) allowed a lower passer rating.
Of course, neither of those statistics is a fully accurate representation of quality cornerback play either. Still, they do show that Gonzalez — even within PFF’s own charting — was better relative to his peers than his 76.0 grade or 15th-place ranking would suggest, particularly considering that he was going against opponents’ No. 1 wide receivers on a week-to-week basis.
But even if PFF grades are used as a measurement to determine the Top 25 list, Gonzalez not making it feels odd. Just look at fellow 2023 first-round draft pick Devon Witherspoon of the Seattle Seahawks.
A quality player in his own right, Witherspoon is certainly deserving of a spot on the list; he is ranked 16th overall. Going strictly by PFF grade, however, his case versus Gonzalez’s is not that much stronger.
Witherspoon is graded just 0.1 points higher overall, while trailing Gonzalez in what one would believe to be the two most...
