Question about franchise tag

[gollum]

I know that the value of the contract if signed is the average of the top five base salaries of players at that position.

My question is at what date are those base salaries effective? Beginning of the new year(end of Feb)? Let's say that Archuleta gets cut either before or after the first day of the year(fiscal year in the league, not Jan 1). That would mean #6 now becomes the 5th highest paid player.

Would it affect Hamlin's contract for the franchise year at all, or is it a mute point because it is what is was at a certain date.

Hope I made sense.

 

[speedkilz88]

I read in another post about there being two different franchise designations. The regular one being based on last years averages(which I assume was used on Hamlin) and an exclusive rights version where other teams can't even negotiate with the player but the team has to pay them the average of this years which can go up as free agents are signed this year. (The example was Nnamdi Asougma being tagged with the exclusive rights franchise tag by the raiders.)