It's tagging day! Today is the first day teams can officially place the various franchise tags on players. Now it doesn't mean a whole lot other than as a sign that the team really doesn't want to lose the guy, but it helps to refine the picture a bit on who will, and who won't be free agents.
Teams have a choice of tags. There's the exclusive franchise tag which means no one else can even talk to the guy. The team has to pay the guy the average of the top highest five players at that position from last year or 120% of his previous year's salary, whichever is greater. This gets pretty expensive pretty quickly for the higher paid players around the league.
Then there's the non-exclusive tag. Here the player can negotiate with any team around the league, but the original team has the right to match any offer he receives. The payday here is typically a bit lower in that it's the average of the top five highest paid players at that position over the previous five years, or 120% of the previous year's contract, whichever is higher. If the original team opts to not match the offer they would get two first round draft picks as compensation. (Which is why you pretty much never hear of a team signing such a guy. That's a steep price to pay to sign a guy.)
And finally there's the transition tag,. The transition tag guarantees the player the average of the top ten players at his position last year, or 120% of his last year's salary, whichever is greater. Other teams can negotiate with the player, but the original team once again has the right to match the offer. If they refuse to match the offer, there's no compensation and the guy just joins the new team.
Players have several options if they find themselves tagged. They can sign it immediately (which is what Kirk Cousins did last year) and that locks it in so the team can't withdraw the offer.
Teams can and do withdraw the franchise tag designation some years (Josh Norman being a recent example) so signing it immediately prevents that. Some teams like to tag a player and then let free agency largely play out, then withdraw the tag and with most of the free agency money spent and other free agents signed to fill roster holes elsewhere the player has less negotiating power.
A tagged player can still negotiate a new contract up until July 15th (or so) and sign it, but after that date, they're locked into the franchise tag number.
Teams will typically work like mad to sign a guy to a long term contract quickly as tagging them repeatedly gets very expensive. Kirk Cousins will be making around $24 million this year if he plays under the tag and if they tag him again next year it'll be more like $34 million.
I'm pretty sure the Eagles won't tag anyone. The only free agent of note is Bennie Logan and he'd be overpaid if tagged. They might put a transition tag on him, bu tI doubt it.
There's been some speculation that the Redskins could use a tag other than the exclusive tag on Kirk Cousins to gauge interest in him around the league. (They believe his value is in the $15-$18 million a year range.) Since they'd have the right to match any offer he got that could give them a lower cost way to get him signed to a long term deal as it's likely no other team would sign him for the $24 million he'll make this year or the $34 million he'd make next year under the exclusive tag. Kirk has no real need to sign a long term deal with the Redskins considerng the paydays he's pretty much guaranteed now. Anything that pays him less than $58 million over the next two years (that's an average of $29 million a year) would be a pay cut for him and it would be kind of silly to sign such a deal and he and his agent know it.
If the Redskins were to tag him in such a manner that Kirk could test the market, he'd likely find that his market value around the league tops out at $20 million a year (at most) and not the $29 million he'll be averaging by playing under the tag. Now even if a team offers him a $20 million a year deal, he'd likely say no, and play under the tag instead where he'll make $24 million this year and $34 million if tagged again next year. He's got a whole lot more control over his future than is ideal for the Redskins.
Over the next two weeks we'll see some players tagged and off the free agent market. Some of those guys will then sign new contracts and have the tag withdrawn. Guys nearly certain to be tagged include LeVeon Bell of the Steelers, Chandler Jones of the Cards, Eric Berry of the Chiefs, Kawann Short of the Panthers, and Kirk Cousins of the Redskins.
Lots of guys are on the bubble including Jason PIerre Paul of the Giants, Terrelle Pryor of the Browns, AJ Bouye of the Texans, and lots, lots more. We won't know who the free agents will be until the tagging period ends. A few of those who get tagged may ultimately have the tag revoked and be turned loose after the initial wave of signings is done, like Josh Norman last year.
Some teams pretty much have to spend a lot in free agency due to the fact that they have a lot of unused salary cap space. The new CBA forces teams to spend 95% of the cap on player salaries in any given year. Teams like the Browns with over $100 million in cap space have a lot of money they have to spend. Rookie contracts are a set value these days so they'll eat about ten million of that, but that's still a lot of money they have to spend.
Some teams like the Cowboys are already over the cap by $11+ million and have to cut that much in salary just to break even. Then they've got to free up millions more to pay their rookies before they can even think about signing free agents. So we've got cash rich teams like the Browns and Niners and cash poor teams like the Cowboys all needing new players, and players all looking to cash in. This next month or so looks to be pretty busy around the NFL.
Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!
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