Keep in mind that this article was written on July 16, not August 5th.
The deadline for NFL teams to sign a player to a long-term extension has passed and according to Adam Schefter, 12 players will play this season under the franchise tag. That’s the most since the tag was established back in 1993. Now you might be asking yourself, what in the world is a franchise tag? Courtesy of sbnation.com, “teams have a two-week window to apply the one-year tender. Players who get the tag have to either sign their tender or negotiate a long-term contract with their teams before the July 15 deadline.” “The franchise tag is essentially a one-year contract that guarantees a predetermined salary for players.” It’s basically a parallel to MLB’s qualifying offer. Teams give a specific player a certain amount of money to stay with the team. If they agree to the offer, they will stay with the team and get that amount of money. However, if they disagree, they can test the waters of free agency. I know, seems easy to understand right? Nope!
Turns out, there are 3 types of a franchise tag. Once again, according to sbnation.com, there’s an exclusive tag, which means the player has to play with a team and can’t negotiate with any other teams in free agency. There’s a non-exclusive tag, which allows a player to negotiate with other teams. Nonetheless, if another team makes an offer to a player, the original team has the ability to match it. If they don’t match it, they give up two first-round picks to make up for it. Finally, there’s a transitional tag. It’s basically the non-exclusive tag but there’s no matching an offer for the original team. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, it’s completely understandable. It can be confusing for anybody, especially for someone who loves sports. However, it can also be kind of idiotic.
Of those 12 players I mentioned earlier, one stood out from among the rest. His name is Dak Prescott. He’s one of the top QB’s in the league right now, throwing for just under 5,000 yards, 30 touchdowns and 11 interceptions last season. According to Jane Slater, a reporter for the NFL Network, Prescott was about to sign a contract at the last minute that was worth 33-35 million dollars annually and 110 million guaranteed. Nevertheless, that wasn’t the case and the 4 ET deadline hit. Along with Prescott, players like A.J Green, Hunter Henry, Matt Judon, Yannick Ngakoue and Shaq Barrett (the league leader in sacks last year) all didn’t agree to extensions and except to play a full season under the franchise tag.
Here’s a proposal, just extend the deadline. I know, you’re probably like, “how in the world can they extend it if they are already set on a date and time.” Hear me out for a second. You know when there is a big assignment or project that’s due the next day and you won’t be able to get it done on time. Then, if that happens, you ask the teacher for an extension and they either say yes or no. That’s the same thing with Prescott. He was going to sign really close to the deadline. So, instead of heartbreak around a front office after the deadline, the owner or general manager should have the right to call the Commissioner’s Office and ask them to extend the deadline for a few hours. This way it’s up to the league to say yes or no.
NFL, please nix the franchise tag from your rulebook. It’s confusing to your fans and it’s not giving your teams and players enough time to sign a contract come deadline day. If you’re not nixing it, at least modify it because it’s getting annoying at this point.
Sources: sbnation.com, twitter.com, profootball-reference.com, nfl.com/stats