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A game of tag
11:39 AM Sun, Feb 10, 2008 | Permalink
Albert Breer
We're three days into the 15-day window for teams to place the franchise tag on players, and so far, only one player -- Eagles TE L.J. Smith -- has officially been slapped with the designation.
Surely, more are coming. Oakland CB Nnamdi Asomugha and Tennessee DT Albert Haynesworth are expected to get it, and Seattle CB Marcus Trufant, Arizona LB Karlos Dansby and New England WR Randy Moss could too. As could Cowboys OT Flozell Adams.
I'm on record as saying there'd be plenty of benefit to tagging Adams, not the least of which would be buying a year to further develop the team's young tackles and identify a long-term answer at the position. It's costly, yes, at $9 million (I had the number wrong earlier this week, since I believed the 20 percent raise applied to players tagged in back-to-back years). And most players aren't exactly thrilled when they get hit with the tag, so there's that issue.
How do these things usually work out? The answers vary, as detailed by Paul Kuharsky of the Tennessean this week. Follow the jump for the results of Kuharsky's study of the 30 franchise tags handed out since 2004, involving 24 players.
• 10 players eventually signed long-term deals with the team that tagged them, five of those before they ever played under the franchise designation.
• 7 moved on as free agents when they finally hit the market.
• 4 are in line to become free agents on Feb. 29 (Lance Briggs, Josh Brown, Asante Samuel, Justin Smith).
• 2 were traded.
• 1 had the tag withdrawn and became a free agent.
The bottom line here: Only one in six players tagged over the last four off-seasons had the franchise tag serve as a direct precursor to a long-term deal. So if Flo's tagged, the most likely scenario has him playing for the one-year tender in 2008.
Interestingly, the Cowboys have only used the franchise tag once in the 16 years it has existed, and that was on Adams in 2002. Flo signed his one-year, $4.92 million tender that April, and then inked a five-year, $25 million extension in 2003.
That tagging was about as smooth as it gets in these situations. Usually, players are legitimately upset, and some even use the tag as a way to skip training camp (call that the Walter Jones Technique).
And there are plenty of examples of players threatening to sit out through 10 weeks of the season, the point at which they have to report to get an accrued season toward their benefits or -- in the case of players with four years under their belts -- to even become a free agent. Two such cases, those of Briggs and Samuel, arose last season. Each player said he was going to sit. Briggs wound up showing at the start of camp, and Samuel arrived two weeks before the season started and went on to have an All-Pro year.
The point is, it rarely winds up messing with a team's season.
There's a chance that tagging Flo could lead him to sit out camp. Maybe there'd even be some grousing. But he was out for much of 2007's camp and, six months later, is in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl.
At 33, Adams is still playing at a high level and remains invaluable as Tony Romo's blindside protection. Will he be the same in three years? The franchise tag, while costly, would make it so the Cowboys don't have to gamble on that.
Now, if they know things that we don't about Doug Free or Pat McQuistan being able to take over at left tackle, then the solution here changes. But while the team's past says that Adams being tagged is unlikely, it wouldn't exactly be shocking to see the first player in club history to get the franchise desigination also be the second.
11:39 AM Sun, Feb 10, 2008 | Permalink
Albert Breer
We're three days into the 15-day window for teams to place the franchise tag on players, and so far, only one player -- Eagles TE L.J. Smith -- has officially been slapped with the designation.
Surely, more are coming. Oakland CB Nnamdi Asomugha and Tennessee DT Albert Haynesworth are expected to get it, and Seattle CB Marcus Trufant, Arizona LB Karlos Dansby and New England WR Randy Moss could too. As could Cowboys OT Flozell Adams.
I'm on record as saying there'd be plenty of benefit to tagging Adams, not the least of which would be buying a year to further develop the team's young tackles and identify a long-term answer at the position. It's costly, yes, at $9 million (I had the number wrong earlier this week, since I believed the 20 percent raise applied to players tagged in back-to-back years). And most players aren't exactly thrilled when they get hit with the tag, so there's that issue.
How do these things usually work out? The answers vary, as detailed by Paul Kuharsky of the Tennessean this week. Follow the jump for the results of Kuharsky's study of the 30 franchise tags handed out since 2004, involving 24 players.
• 10 players eventually signed long-term deals with the team that tagged them, five of those before they ever played under the franchise designation.
• 7 moved on as free agents when they finally hit the market.
• 4 are in line to become free agents on Feb. 29 (Lance Briggs, Josh Brown, Asante Samuel, Justin Smith).
• 2 were traded.
• 1 had the tag withdrawn and became a free agent.
The bottom line here: Only one in six players tagged over the last four off-seasons had the franchise tag serve as a direct precursor to a long-term deal. So if Flo's tagged, the most likely scenario has him playing for the one-year tender in 2008.
Interestingly, the Cowboys have only used the franchise tag once in the 16 years it has existed, and that was on Adams in 2002. Flo signed his one-year, $4.92 million tender that April, and then inked a five-year, $25 million extension in 2003.
That tagging was about as smooth as it gets in these situations. Usually, players are legitimately upset, and some even use the tag as a way to skip training camp (call that the Walter Jones Technique).
And there are plenty of examples of players threatening to sit out through 10 weeks of the season, the point at which they have to report to get an accrued season toward their benefits or -- in the case of players with four years under their belts -- to even become a free agent. Two such cases, those of Briggs and Samuel, arose last season. Each player said he was going to sit. Briggs wound up showing at the start of camp, and Samuel arrived two weeks before the season started and went on to have an All-Pro year.
The point is, it rarely winds up messing with a team's season.
There's a chance that tagging Flo could lead him to sit out camp. Maybe there'd even be some grousing. But he was out for much of 2007's camp and, six months later, is in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl.
At 33, Adams is still playing at a high level and remains invaluable as Tony Romo's blindside protection. Will he be the same in three years? The franchise tag, while costly, would make it so the Cowboys don't have to gamble on that.
Now, if they know things that we don't about Doug Free or Pat McQuistan being able to take over at left tackle, then the solution here changes. But while the team's past says that Adams being tagged is unlikely, it wouldn't exactly be shocking to see the first player in club history to get the franchise desigination also be the second.
