{"id":645,"date":"2013-03-05T22:21:31","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T03:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=645"},"modified":"2013-03-05T22:21:31","modified_gmt":"2013-03-06T03:21:31","slug":"tuesday-teabag-march-5-2013-franchise-tag-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=645","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Teabag, March 5, 2013 – Franchise Tag Edition!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the deadline for NFL teams to utilize the Franchise Tag.\u00a0 The Franchise Tag basically allows teams to retain the exclusive rights to one (1) unrestricted free agent (UFA)\u00a0every off-season;\u00a0 in return for losing the ability to become a free agent, the player will receive the average\u00a0of the\u00a0top five (5) salaries for their position.\u00a0 You can bang it here<\/a> for more information regarding the nuances of the tag designations.<\/p>\n

The important thing to remember is that the Franchise Tag has been\u00a0collectively bargained as part of the labor agreement between the NFL and the NFLPA.\u00a0 It gives teams the ability to retain young, up-and-coming talent or fan-favorite veterans.\u00a0 From the union’s point\u00a0of view, it compensates\u00a0tagged players with the top\u00a0earners at a given postion, while allowing a majority of UFA’s the ability to hit the open market.\u00a0 Further, a Franchise Contract, albeit for one-year, is fully guaranteed!<\/p>\n

However, if you were to believe the players and media, the Franchise Tag is an evil instrument that the good ‘ol boy owners\/GMs use to repress the players.\u00a0 Every offseason, a majority of “tagged” players take to the media\/interviews\/twitter to lament the franchise tag.\u00a0 For instances,\u00a0when The Machine took a break today from image searching Kate Upton<\/a>, we stumbled\u00a0upon an article by Alex Marvez on Fox Sports website\u00a0titled: Let’s Meet the NFL’s Unlucky Eight<\/a>.\u00a0 Marvez\u00a0takes up the players (read: agents) argument\u00a0that the eight (8) tagged players “aren\u2019t getting the financial security that comes with long-term contracts”, and are therefore “unlucky”.\u00a0 Huh.\u00a0 Isn’t Top-Five NFL money financial security in and of its own right?!\u00a0 In a league without guaranteed contracts, isn’t signing the dotted line knowing that you’re getting every single penny worth something?!<\/p>\n

Here are the “Unlucky Eight” with their projected 2013 salary, in millions of dollars\u00a0(2012 salary in parenthesis):<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Randy Starks, DT $8.45 ($5.0)… 69% raise<\/li>\n
  2. Jarius\u00a0Bryd, S $6.92 ($1.07)… 547% raise<\/li>\n
  3. Henry Melton, DT $8.45 ($0.69)…1,125% raise<\/li>\n
  4. Pat McAfee, P $2.98 ($1.32)… 126% raise<\/li>\n
  5. Ryan Clady, OL $9.83 ($5.83)… 69% raise<\/li>\n
  6. Anthony Spencer, LB $10.6* ($8.86)… *20% automatic raise from second consecutive tag.<\/li>\n
  7. Michael Johnson, DE $11.2 ($1.62)…617% raise<\/li>\n
  8. Branden Albert, OL $9.83 ($4.19)…\u00a0 135% raise<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That is a nice group of players, no doubt.\u00a0 It is easy to see why teams choose to lock these guys up for at least another year in hopes of working out a long-term\u00a0deal.\u00a0 However, outside of Jarius\u00a0Bryd, you could make a strong argument that none of these guys are Top-5 at their respective\u00a0position.\u00a0 Henry Melton is a good young player that really came on for the Bears defense last year.\u00a0 He is a reliable starter for sure, with potential to turn into a star.\u00a0 That said, he only had 6 sacks last year and has never had more than 7 in a year (2011).\u00a0 Not exactly the type of player you “game plan” for.\u00a0 Yet, he’ll be making $8.45 million (fully guaranteed) this year.\u00a0 That’s more money than his entire rookie contract paid him.\u00a0 Seems like “fair” and “financially\u00a0securing” type of money for\u00a0one years work.\u00a0 Further, if Micheal Johnson tears a peck five games into the 2013 season, while registering a handful of sacks and playing up to his typical level of play do you mean to tell us an NFL franchise isn’t going to throw a ton of money his way as a 2014 free agent?!\u00a0 How did that (exact scenario) work out for Mario Williams last year (sidenote: Micheal Johnson is nowhere\u00a0near the player Williams is, yet.\u00a0 But the point is still valid)?\u00a0 Teams (the smart ones anyways) sign players for their remaining production\/potential, not for what they’ve previously accomplished.<\/p>\n

    Listen, The Machine is all about athlete’s\u00a0cashing in and getting as much money as they can.\u00a0 Their careers are ridiculously short, we get it.\u00a0 But no matter how you slice it,\u00a0the Franchise Tag isn’t a bad deal.\u00a0 In every case it represents a (significant) pay raise and\u00a0establishes a players\u00a0 “floor value” for future negotiations;\u00a0 because any good agent is going to use the “franchise type player” line when they get a chance.\u00a0 Oh, which reminds us of this tiny little did you know:\u00a0agents of players that receive\u00a0the franchise\u00a0tag\u00a0are not allowed the full 3% commission on the contract.\u00a0 They are\u00a0only allowed to charge 2%, and in\u00a0a second consecutive tag situation\u00a0(like Anthony Spencer above) the agent is only allowed 1.5%.\u00a0 Which begs the question, is the root of the\u00a0hatred for the tag bore at the sports agent level and publicly reflected through the players?\u00a0 Regardless, the franchise tag should be embraced by the players as a means of getting paid like one of the top players in the league!\u00a0 Until that day, we offer a nice warm Tuesday Teabag to all of you Franchise Tag haters!\u00a0 Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Yesterday was the deadline for NFL teams to utilize the Franchise Tag.\u00a0 The Franchise Tag basically allows teams to retain the exclusive rights to one (1) unrestricted free agent (UFA)\u00a0every off-season;\u00a0 in return for losing the ability to become a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl","category-tuesday-teabag"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-ap","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":647,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}