As expected, both Devon Witherspoon and Christian Gonzalez have signed new contract extensions and set a new standard for NFL cornerbacks. No matter how you look at it, these guys are the new barometer for the position with deals at 4/$132m and 4/$135m respectively. However, their stay at the top will likely not be long.
Even if you think Derek Stingley or Patrick Surtain II are better CBs than the two above, they already signed their extensions previously. NFL players can sign extensions at any time, but for the most part, once the guaranteed money runs out and the cap hit gets too high, that’s when the veteran extensions start happening. For this duo, Stingley signed his 3/$90m nearly fully guaranteed contract last year while Surtain signed the year before for 4/$96m. At the earliest, they will not be signing new deals until after 2027. Trent McDuffie and Denzel Ward also signed big CB extensions this cycle, but Gonzalez and Witherspoon will be the last of them. Anyone who could possibly get the top contract at the position has already signed their deal.
So, who is next? Well, this is an Eagles blog so you can imagine we are about to talk about Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean. Both were named First Team All-Pro last year and are about to enter their third years in the NFL. That means by the end of the season, both will be eligible for contract extensions. While Mitchell has a 5th year option the team can play with, the situation with DeJean is very different as a 2nd round pick. The only ability the Eagles would have to keep him past year 4 without an extension would be under the ever-increasing franchise tag. The Eagles are not prepared to give the tag to anyone considering their full impact on the salary cap.1
What kind of numbers are we looking at? Full disclosure, there is obviously no guarantee that Mitchell and/or DeJean will duplicate what they did over their first two seasons in 2026. It’s certainly not impossible though. If anything, it might be easier for them to get recognition now since everyone knows their names. Anything close to what they did last year will have both at the head of the table come next offseason.
For Mitchell, things are actually pretty easy. In a vacuum, he is in the conversation for best CB in football. Teams barely even throw at him he is so sticky in coverage. CB1s get paid and he will be using the Gonzalez contract as his floor. It could be as simple as getting 4/$136m, good for a $34m per season with $105m-ish guaranteed. If that’s what he wants, he’s getting it. Maybe it goes as high as 4/$140m. That’s the easy part.
For DeJean, things are different. First of all, what is he? On the Eagles depth chart, he is listed as a nickel corner. However, in the base defense, it’s been said that he could lineup at either Safety or on the outside at CB2. There’s a big difference in how all of those guys are paid. The highest paid nickel corner in the NFL is Kyler Gordon of the Bears at 3/$40m. That’s not what DeJean is looking for. How about Safety? That would be Kyle Hamilton at 4/$100.4m. The problem with both of those is that DeJean is filling in because he has the talent and athleticism to play anywhere, including on the outside. The Eagles just do not use him like that. Should he be penalized for being useful and a team player?
The Eagles absolutely know that this is an issue and are prepared to navigate the situation. He should get paid like either the top safety in football or one of the top CBs. Will he get the record? Not for CB. He is probably looking at around 4/$120m that pays him like a top versatile CB rather than anything else.
Will that cause a problem? That’s a legitimate concern. Mitchell and DeJean do not share an agent, but they do share the secondary, are both All-Pros, and both have Super Bowl rings. Their resumes are as close as can be for two players who cannot occupy the same position. There’s a good reason to think that DeJean’s camp will want him to be paid the same as Mitchell. There’s a lot of pride involved here. Ask yourself the same question, would you like to take a backseat to someone you believe you are just as good as?
This might mean the Eagles are looking at signing them both to identical contracts. This will be a bigger sacrifice for Mitchell than it would be for DeJean. The Eagles have asked their older veterans to take pay cuts but never their young stars. Hell, Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter just got monster deals this offseason. While it would be great for the team payroll for both to sign at 4/$120m, asking Mitchell not to be the highest paid corner EVER might be too much to ask. Could that mean both get 4/$136m? It might. That would certainly be a boon for the safety position and someone like Kyle Hamilton next time he is up for an extension.
- If the franchise tag is $30m, that is a $30m shot right on to the cap. However, a contract for $30m per year could be smoothed onto the cap through a variety of methods and come down to 7 figures. ↩︎
Photo: The original uploader was Betp at French Wikipedia. – modifications by User:Maps and stuff: perspective correction to straighten foreground goalpost; cropped part of sky to match aspect ratio of side-by-side image in the Philadelphia article’s montage-style infobox; removed large ad at far side of field by cloning., CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons
Leave a Reply