Steelers Unlikely to Utilize Franchise Tag in 2021
On Tuesday, the NFL's window for teams to place franchise tag designations on players officially opened. All 32 franchises, including the Pittsburgh Steelers, will have until March 9 at 4 p.m. ET to place the tag on whatever player deemed necessary to keep around for another season.
Upon using the tag, teams will typically have until mid-July to reach a long-term deal with a player. Should they not be able to strike a deal, the player will play on a fully-guaranteed one-year contract.
The Steelers are no strangers to placing the franchise tag on players, with their most recent use coming last season when the Steelers kept linebacker Bud Dupree in Pittsburgh for one more season. Prior to Dupree, the Steelers used the tag on former running back Le'Veon Bell twice. Other players who have been slapped with the tag include Jason Worilds, LaMarr Woodley and Jeff Reed, dating back to the 2010 season.
How exactly does the franchise tag work? Kevin Patra of NFL.com wrote an excellent piece explaining the different types of tags and what they do.
Essentially, there are three different types of franchise tags available for use: An exclusive franchise tag, a non-exclusive franchise tag, and a transition tag.
An exclusive franchise tag is a one-year tender that will pay the player an average of the top five salaries of the player's position for the current year, or 120% of his previous salary, whichever is higher. With the exclusive tag, the player cannot negotiate with another team.
The non-exclusive franchise tag is a one-year tender that takes the average salary of the player's position over the last five years, or 120% of his previous salary, whichever is higher. On the non-exclusive tag, the player can negotiate with another team. Should a team lose the player on the non-exclusive tag, they would receive two first-round picks as a result.
The transition tag is a one-year tender that takes the average of the top ten salaries at the player's position, and guarantees the original team the right of first refusal to match any offer, yet the club is awarded no compensation if they do not match any offers.
Only one of the tags can be used per offseason.
Deciding what tag to use can be a bit tricky at times. While the non-exclusive tag is the most popular and carries the smallest risk/greatest reward, the exclusive tag essentially guarantees you the player will be on the roster (yet for a higher price tag), while the transition tag generally is riskier in terms of player retention.
However, deciding what position to use it on is another difficult decision due to the varying price tags. As stated above, each tag can be high averages of the top five or top ten of the position. In the case of the exclusive tag, the top five salaries at the position of the current year would pay much higher than any of the other tags, since the salary cap and thus contracts have exponentially grown on the previous five-year scale the non-exclusive tags works from.
OverTheCap's projected figures for each position in 2021:
With key starters in the likes of JuJu Smith-Schuster and Bud Dupree among others ready to depart in free agency, how likely are the Steelers to use the franchise tag in some capacity?
According to Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert, it appears far-fetched:
"I would say it’s doubtful that we will be able to use a tag," said Colbert.
"Again, when we say we don’t know what the cap is, what we try to do is prepare for the worst situation. Right now, we know the cap can’t go below 175 million dollars based on the CBA. So, we will always work in that mindset. We will play different scenarios and put together different scenarios in the event that is what we are dealing with. And we will try to guestimate what a certain player may cost us, be it our own player or be it someone else. And we will always weigh that and measure that against what might be available to us in the draft. As I said, if a position in the draft is very strong and you feel good about being able to get a player in the draft that might take you away from signing a free agent or extending your own free agent. I hate to keep saying that, but it’s the truth. We have to continually monitor this and work at it every day because it does change actually daily."
With the Steelers still maneuvering their own cap problems, it would be difficult to retain any of their top free agents on a franchise tag, at least in this point in time.
Donnie Druin is a Staff Writer with AllSteelers. Follow Donnie on Twitter @DonnieDruin, and AllSteelers @si_steelers.
