The Tagging Is Done

Yesterday was the last day that NFL teams could use the franchise tag on one of their upcoming unrestricted free agents. Only eight teams did. That came after a record 21 teams used the franchise tag last year.

Here are those eight teams, the players tagged, and the one-year tender offer that comes with that player's position:

Buffalo  S Jairus Byrd  (6,916,000)
Chicago  DT Henry Melton  (8,450,000)
Cincinnati  DE Michael Johnson  (11,750,000)
Dallas  LB Anthony Spencer  (9,619,000)
Denver  T Ryan Clady  (9,828,000)
Indianapolis  P Pat McAfee  (2,977,000)
Kansas City  T Branden Albert  (9,828,000)
Miami  DT Randy Starks  (8,450,000)

A punter! It's really not that shocking. There were several kickers tagged last year. The franchise tags for kickers and punters are fairly reasonable. If you have a good one, you want to keep him.

Those are some pretty nice one-year salaries. Still, players usually hate the tags. It keeps them from signing those long-term contracts and mostly importantly it keeps them from receiving those gigantic signing bonuses. Teams only use these tags as a last resort. They'd prefer to sign these players to a long-term contract that allows them to spread the all important signing bonus over the length of the contract. The cap hits are usually lower than the large franchise salary. Teams and players can still negotiate a long-term contract later in the offseason.

One player likely more upset than most is Anthony Spencer. Last year, he played at outside linebacker in the 3-4 defense run by then Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. Dallas is switching to the 4-3 and moving Spencer to defensive end. He's losing over $2 million being tagged at a position that he isn't going to play.