Will Cardinals Use Franchise Tag This Offseason?

The Arizona Cardinals may not have a strong candidate to use the franchise tag on.

Arizona Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort during an NFL pre-draft press conference at the Cardinals Dignity Health Training Center in Tempe on April 18, 2024. | Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK

ARIZONA -- The Arizona Cardinals enter the 2025 with very few orders of business when it comes to free agency.

Such is life when massive contracts for James Conner and Budda Baker are handled prior to the end of the regular season and there's no priority players at the top of the pending free agents list.

As a result, there's not many players who make sense for the Cardinals to utilize the franchise tag on.

"Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort proactively secured Arizona’s key contributors during the regular season, signing Budda Baker (three years, $54 million) and James Conner (two years, $19 million) to extensions. Now, Ossenfort will turn to negotiating an extension for Trey McBride, as the standout tight end enters a contract year," wrote Pro Football Focus' Mason Cameron.

For what it's worth, PFF only had a total of four teams with actual candidates - so the Cardinals aren't alone.

In terms of previous annual average salary, the Cardinals' top free agents are as follows:

- Kyzir White
- Will Hernandez
- Matt Prater
- Dennis Gardeck
- Kelvin Beachum

The franchise tag is typically utilized by teams to prevent some big-name players from escaping their grasp - at least for free.

The downside to that privilege is teams must pay quite a pretty penny for what is a fully guaranteed one-year contract that is worth the average of the top five salaries at that position over the last five years or 120% of the player's previous salary, whichever is higher.

In example, should the Cardinals want to franchise tag Kyzir White, they'd have to pay him a projected $27 million if they couldn't reach a long-term extension by July.

Quite frankly, neither he or any other pending free agent is worth top-five money at their position.

We could see the franchise tag removed out of the next CBA, as many players feel as if it gives teams an unfair advantage to prevent players from hitting the open market and maximizing their value.

The Cardinals haven't utilized the tag in a while, as Arizona last placed the transition tag on running back Kenyan Drake in 2020 according to Pro Football Rumors. In 2017, Arizona placed the franchise tag on Chandler Jones before he inked a five-year, $82.5 million extension.