Franchise Tag Numbers

Wednesday was the first day that teams could use the franchise tag on one of their soon-to-be free agents. From their beginning franchise tags were always meant to give teams another way to control the free agency movement of their players. The players get a real nice one-year contract. The teams get to keep their player for another year. The players hate it because they get no signing bonuses or long-term security. The teams like the control and bargaining power that it gives them. The franchise tag tenders used to be the average of the five highest cap numbers at each position from the prior year. The 2011 CBA added a bit more math to the calculation. Now the tenders are determined by the aggregate sum of the franchise tags at each position over the prior five-year period divided by the aggregate sum of the salary cap over the same five-year period. Basically, the league determines what percentage of the salary cap that a player at each position should get when they are franchise-tagged.

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the 2017 percentages are as follows:

Quarterback: 12.735 percent.

Defensive end: 10.14 percent.

Receiver: 9.39 percent.

Linebacker: 8.712 percent.

Offensive line: 8.546 percent.

Cornerback: 8.51 percent.

Defensive tackle: 8.016 percent.

Running back: 7.257 percent.

Safety: 6.524 percent.

Tight end: 5.856 percent.

Kicker-punter: 2.895 percent.

The actual dollar amounts won't be known until the salary cap number for 2017 is finalized. Based on a salary cap of $165 million, here are the franchise contract amounts.

Quarterback: $21.01 million.

Defensive end: $16.73 million.

Receiver: $15.49 million.

Linebacker: $14.37 million.

Offensive line: $14.1 million.

Cornerback: $14.04 million.

Defensive tackle: $13.22 million.

Running back: $11.9 million.

Safety: $10.76 million.

Tight end: $9.66 million.

Kicker-punter: $4.77 million

The league really needs to look into breaking down the positions even more. As it stands now pass-rushing linebackers are being paid like defensive ends. So much like ends that they should probably be grouped with them rather than interior linebackers. They separate defensive ends from defensive tackles. Why not separate interior and outside linebackers? The same goes for each of the offensive line positions. The NFL sometimes has a real slow learning curve.