The NFL’s franchise tag and transition tag window for the 2023 NFL season officially opens on Tuesday, Feb. 21, and closes on Tuesday, March 7. The Kansas City Chiefs are expected to use the franchise tag for the second consecutive season, and they’re expected to use it on the same player at that.
After trading to acquire LT Orlando Brown Jr. in April of 2021, Chiefs GM Brett Veach sought to use the franchise tag as a tool to buy the team time. They needed that time to negotiate toward an agreement on a long-term contract extension ahead of the 2022 NFL season. Unfortunately, the two sides could not agree to a deal ahead of the mid-July deadline, which left Brown Jr. to earn a one-year contract worth $16.6 million on the franchise tag this past season.
The team reportedly offered Brown Jr. a six-year extension worth up to $139 million. Whether the four-time Pro Bowl left tackle receives a long-term deal from the team this time around remains to be seen, but Andy Reid has indicated that he expects Veach to make a “strong attempt” to retain both Brown Jr. and Andrew Wylie. One might even consider both players a priority for the team this off-season.
If an agreement on a long-term deal doesn’t happen in the next 15 days, you can expect the team will again place the franchise tag on Brown Jr. in order to buy themselves more time to negotiate, just as they did last year. Brown Jr. even hinted at his expectations for his contract status with the team after Super Bowl LVII.
“I’m pretty sure I know I’ll be here next year, but we’ll see how things go,” Brown Jr. said, via NBC Sports.
Players who are franchise-tagged two years in a row must earn at least 120 percent of the franchise tag number from the year prior. That means Brown Jr. would earn a fully guaranteed $19.9 million in 2023 on the franchise tag. That big salary-cap number would be rather restrictive for Kansas City, which makes a long-term contract paramount for the team’s future.
