Cardinals Don't Use Franchise Tag

ARIZONA -- The NFL's franchise tag deadline of 4:00 PM EST has passed, and the Arizona Cardinals (to no surprise) opted not to utilize the tool.

Only two players (Cincinnati Bengals WR Tee Higgins and Kansas City Chiefs guard Trey Smith) were tagged, marking the fewest number of players since 1994.

Only two players — Tee Higgins and Trey Smith — were tagged this year, the fewest number of players tagged since 1994, when Eric Green and Henry Thomas were tagged, per @EpKap.

There were eight players given the franchise tag last year and there have been at least six players…
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 4, 2025

With no marquee free agents set for Arizona to utilize any of the tags on, it didn't make sense for the Cardinals to commit top money to any of their potential free agents set to leave.

Kenyan Drake (transition tag) in 2020 and Chandler Jones (franchise tag) in 2017 were the last two instances where Arizona utilized the tag.

Tag numbers this year via Pro Football Talk:

Quarterback: $40.242 million (franchise); $35.377 million (transition).
Running back: $13.64 million (franchise); $11.067 million (transition).
Wide receiver: $23.959 million (franchise); $21.441 million (transition).
Tight end: $13.826 million (franchise); $11.712 million (transition).
Offensive line: $23.402 million (franchise); $21.271 million (transition).
Defensive end: $22.062 million (franchise); $19.872 million (transition).
Defensive tackle: $25.123 million (franchise); $20.849 million (transition).
Linebacker: $25.452 million (franchise); $20.862 million (transition).
Cornerback: $20.187 million (franchise); $17.595 million (transition).
Safety: $18.601 million (franchise); $15.027 million (transition).
Kicker/Punter: $6.313 million (franchise); $5.73 million (transition).

Arizona has north of $70 million in cap space ahead of free agency beginning next week.

Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort offered the following on their upcoming free agency period:

"I think it gives us an opportunity because it gives us flexibility. I think it gives us opportunities to see what the market is at certain positions. When you're when you're tight up against the cap, it limits what you can do," said Ossenfort.

"It's just one of those things where you also have to be smart about it. You don't want to spend to spend either. You have to make the right decisions. If you historically look back and see teams that won the off-season or teams that won free agency... going back and looking at 2020, is that always the case, six, nine, or 12 months later? I don't know.

"Free agency is a great roster-building tool. We're right here on the cusp of the two biggest roster-building opportunities for us in free agency followed by the draft. We're going to be active in both of them. We're going to make smart decisions and things that we think are the right fit for our team, both the person, the makeup, and then also schematically, who can help us the most."

Top Cardinals set to hit free agency include Kyzir White, Will Hernandez and Baron Browning among others.