Stephon Gilmore is holding out. The cornerback skipped the start of the Patriots’ minicamp and he’ll be keeping his distance for the full three-day period (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo). 
Gilmore is rehabbing from a partially torn quad, but that’s only part of the story. Gilmore wants a new contract — he’s currently slated to make $7MM in base salary, which puts him outside of the top 20 for his position. Meanwhile, his $16.265MM cap figure is the highest of any corner, thanks to the Patriots’ previous adjustments to his deal. When the two sides were in a similar spot last year, the Pats agreed to accelerate $4.5MM of his pay.
The Pats inked Gilmore to a five-year, $65MM deal in 2017. That was a whopping contract at the time for the historically stingy Patriots, but it’s proven to be one of the best values in the entire league. Gilmore was named the Defensive Player of the Year in 2019. Meanwhile, Jalen Ramsey, Marlon Humphrey, and Tre’Davious White have all moved the market with $17MM+/year extensions.
Why can’t they just honor their contracts? You can’t sign a contract for a ton and then ask for more when someone else gets more.
Lol because teams only honor a part of the contract. Hence why there’s always an inclusion of “guaranteed money”. So if teams can pull out of deals why can’t players?
I would agree with you in any other sport. Football players get cut all the time losing their salary whereas in other sports they still get it. People make players villains cuz they are millionaires but they forgot they play for billionaires who can easily afford it.
Alex Smith. Players need to look out for themselves and I do not fault Gilmore one bit.