NFL Offseason Thread

[MUBurrow]

He is 26 years old and will be 30/31 when his contract comes up. Perfect length of the contract.

yeah, and cedric benson was 23 when he played for the bears. forte's got a looooot of miles on those 26 year old legs.

[Hards Alumni]

lol@paying running backs money.

[hairy worthen]

lol@paying running backs money.

Thats what is ridiculus to me. The trend is to not pay running backs, its a pass happy league and running backs are fairly easy to find. Thats why you don't see many going in the first round anymore.

[MarsupialMadness]

Does the new CBA prevent franchising the same player more than once?

No, it doesn't, and that's one of the main issues with the tag.  But -- if a player were to be tagged multiple years in a row, they wouldn't necessarily be upset.  The CBA states that a Franchise Tag must be an average of the top 5 salaries at that position OR a 120% increase from that players previous years salary -- whichever is GREATER. 

So if Matt Forte or Drew Brees were to be tagged let's say 3 or 4 years in a row -- their salary would increase by 20% each year.  So if they were making 10 mil in 2012, and were franchised each year for the next 4 years, by 2016 their salary would be 20.25 mil.  A team would not be smart to do that because you are basically adding 20% each year on top of the average of the top 5 players at that position when the original tag was placed.

That rule pretty much gurantees that a team will make a deal with a player before continually applying the tag year after year.  

[Spotcheck Billy]

Saints quarterback Drew Brees cleared up a vague part of the franchise-tag rules this week.

With his successful challenge to the franchise rules, no player can be franchised more than three times during his career, no matter if he moves to another team. Brees was franchised once with the San Diego Chargers and this year by the Saints, who felt they also had the ability to franchise him next year at 120 percent of his 2012 salary and possibly a third time in 2014.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8135026/nfl-franchise-tag-decisions-getting-complicated

System arbitrator Stephen Burbank's ruling Tuesday said if New Orleans tries to tag Brees a second year in a row, he would be entitled to a 44 percent raise to about $23.5 million because it would be his third-career franchise tag. The NFL had argued Brees would be due a 20 percent raise because it would have been only his second franchise tag with one team.

Burbank, however, ruled that while the NFL's CBA has some ambiguity on the matter, it is clear that the overarching purpose of the language regarding multiple franchise tags is meant to protect players from being denied their rights to free agency for an undue length of their careers.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/football/nfl/07/03/saints-drew-brees-arbitration.ap/index.html