The March 9, 4 p.m. ET deadline for teams to use the franchise tag came and went, and the Tennessee Titans weren’t one of the teams to use it one year after placing it on running back Derrick Henry in 2020.
As we’ve previously stated, the Titans weren’t likely to use the franchise tag on any of their players considering it would have cost more than the actual market value of the free agents with the best chance to get it.
The only avenue that would have made sense would have been to use the transition tag on tight end Jonnu Smith, as the projected cost of that is $8.5 million, which is right around Smith’s estimated market value.
However, retaining Smith at all is nowhere near a certainty, as the Titans have huge needs to fill and limited money to do it with, making an underutilized luxury like Smith an unnecessary re-signing.
Of course, utilizing one of the tags on a player doesn’t mean he has to play out the year on it, as teams still have the option to work out a long-term deal by July.
Tennessee not using the franchise or transition tag on players like Smith, or even Jayon Brown or Corey Davis, doesn’t mean those players won’t be coming back, but the Titans will have to work out deals with their pending free agents before 3 p.m. CT on March 17 or else they’ll hit the open market.
