The two-week franchise tag period begins today, and the Colts have some interesting decisions to make before the March 6th deadline.
The first step in the NFL’s free agency process is a two-week period where teams can place the franchise tag on one of their impending free agents.
The franchise tag is a one-year tender that would pay that player the average of the top five salaries at his position, or 120 percent of the player’s previous salary; whichever total is higher. The most popular option is the non-exclusive franchise tag, which allows players to negotiate with other teams during free agency after the tender is signed until July 16th.
The top franchise tag candidate for the Colts would probably be cornerback Rashaan Melvin, who is set to become a free agent this offseason after a career year in Indianapolis.
Melvin is a one-year wonder, and the Colts may not be sure if they want to give him a long-term deal. A season playing under the franchise tag could give the front office a better idea of what kind of player Melvin really is, but they’d be paying him a lot of money to try and figure that out.
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A transition tag, which pays an average salary of the top-ten paid players at the position, may be a better option for Melvin than the franchise tag.
There really aren’t any other pending free agents that would make sense for the Colts to use the franchise tag.
Placing the transition tag on Rashaan Melvin is a possibility, but the Colts haven’t used a franchise tag since 2013 and I don’t expect them to use one this offseason either.
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