Franchise Tag, You’re It
As I look at the NFL calendar for 2007, I see there is less than a week before teams need to designate their franchise players. Every National Football League team is allowed to designate a player who is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent as a franchise player. As a result, each team may only designate one player each year as that team’s franchise player.
There are two types of franchise tag designations: the exclusive rights franchise tag, and non-exclusive rights franchise tag. Let’s review:
- An “exclusive” franchise player must be offered a one-year contract for an amount equal to or greater than the average of the top five salaries at the player’s position as of a date in April of the “current” year in which the tag will apply, or 120 percent of the player’s previous year’s salary, whichever is greater. Exclusive franchise players cannot negotiate with other teams.
- A “non-exclusive” franchise player must be offered a one-year contract for an amount equal to or greater than the average of the top five salaries at the player’s position in the previous year, or 120 percent of the player’s previous year’s salary, whichever is greater. A non-exclusive franchise player may negotiate with other NFL teams, but if he signs an offer sheet from another team, the original team has a right to match the terms of that offer, or if it does not match the offer and thus loses the player, to receive two first-round draft picks as compensation.
It is the team’s choice whether it uses an exclusive or a non-exclusive franchise tag. While it may seem that a team would always choose the exclusive option, there are two reasons a team might prefer the non-exclusive option instead. The first is that the salary is based on the top five salaries of the previous year instead of the current year, which could be a significant difference. The second reason is that a team may want the opportunity for the two first-round draft picks they would receive if they lost their player.
So far, the Bengals (DE Justin Smith, $8.66 million), Bears (LB Lance Briggs, $7.2 million) and Patriots (DB Asanti Samuel, $7.79 million) have announced franchise players and I’m sure we’ll see more announcements as the deadline approaches.
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