Report: Patriots sign safety Patrick Chung to contract extension

While the free agency logjam at safety keeps building, the Patriots are making moves to keep one of their most trusted players in blue and white. Strong safety/nickel corner/tight end eraser/dime linebacker/key piece of the Big Nickel package Patrick Chung got his deal extended today, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

Chung seems pleasantly surprised.

As you can see, Rap doesn’t have any numbers for the deal yet, but given that Chung’s played the past 3 seasons at base salaries of $1,000,000 (2015), $1,400,000 (2016), and $2,500,000 (2017), an extension that keeps New England’s Swiss Army Knife at somewhere between 2 and 3 million total per year sounds about right.

Also, remember that the Patriots gave Pat a chance to put some more green in his wallet last summer by almost doubling his potential incentives, and at least some of those were based on snap %, so you can also look at this like a fist bump for a job well done.

2018 was going to be the last year of Chung’s current contract, and he’s still only 30 years old, the same age as Devin McC...excuse me, the McCourty brothers. Chung was slated to get paid $2,000,000 this year before the extension, so fortunately for him, he won’t be headed into a lame-duck season in 2018 (no Oregon pun intended).

This also locks up the formidable safety trio of Chung, D-Mac, and Duron Harmon through at least 2019 - Harmon signed a 4-year extension in 2017, McCourty is signed through 2019 (although the team could theoretically move on after 2018, and a restructure/extension seems likely), and Pat appears to be back for at least one more season after 2018 with this news.

We’ll update this with the deets of the contract as soon as they’re available.