Patriots star Christian Gonzalez receives massive NFL honor amid contract uncertainty originally appeared on NESN. Christian Gonzalez's future with the New England Patriots might be generating questions, but his standing across the NFL has never been clearer. The annual rankings are determined by votes from NFL players. He has also built a strong argument that he deserves to be compensated among the NFL's best players at his position. His peers now consider him one of the 30 best players in the entire league.