Ahead of the new league year, Tuesday, Feb. 19 marks the first day NFL teams can designate franchise or transition players to prevent possible unrestricted free agents from hitting the open market. Clubs have two weeks – until March 5 – to tag one player, helping to ensure he remains under contract for the 2019 season.
There are three types of tender offers available to NFL teams: the non-exclusive franchise tag, the exclusive franchise tag and the transition tag. Teams can only use one tag per season even if the offer is later rescinded.
In this edition of the free agency primer, we’ll take a look at the tag most commonly used – the non-exclusive franchise tender.
The non-exclusive franchise tag is a one-year offer consisting of the greater of the average of the top five salaries at the player’s position over the last five years or 120 percent of the player’s previous salary.
Once a player is tagged as non-exclusive, he can still negotiate with other NFL teams but his current club retains the right to match any competing offer. Should the player elect to sign with a different organization, his previous team would then receive two first-round draft picks as compensation.
As with all tags, players and teams have until July 15 to come to terms on a new long-term contract but if an extension has not been agreed upon by then, both parties will have to wait until after the team’s final game of the 2019 regular season to negotiate a new deal.
Next up in the series, a closer look at the exclusive franchise tag option.
