Until Cleveland signs him and moves him back to guard. The franchise tag does not force you into playing a certain position. Hell, we might wanna move him to guard ourselves, I even said as much a few posts back. But he CAN'T walk for nothing, if he is gonna leave. I don't understand the problem. We can AFFORD to tag him, so why not? What's the deal?

... you are right.

When do we have to assign the tag to him?

Well, he becomes a FA when the season officially ends. When is that, after the pro bowl? If that's when it is, we have to tag him then. Or at some point before teams can sign FAs, which is in March. Howard will be off the books. Hopefully Brooks and Gandy to follow. We will have more than enough to tag Bentley, dangle him for trades, sign FAs who wanna come here, or whatever. I could see if we were close on money if we tagged him, but he will be counting for what, like 6 mil if we tagged him? That's less than Howard was making. We can do it.

Is there a resource to know what the top 5 or 10 of each position are?

Good question. I dunno. I was going by what QBs make, which got Drew Brees 9 mil last year. And QBs and CBs are supposed to be the highest positions. So figuring it's not 9 mil, I went down to 6. It could be 7 or 8. But we still have enough. I have no idea where to find the top 5 for each position though.

Ask and ye shall receive xan. It's 7.4 mil, or at least it was last year. So basically, it's like dropping Howard and replacing it with Bentley. So that cancels out. We are 10 mil under the cap right now, not counting potential cuts and FAs. So we would still be 10 mil under the cap with Howard gone, and Bentley tagged. Again, without more cuts, trades, or knowing who exactly will be FAs. Pretty good shape.


http://www.askthecommish.com/articles/page.asp?pid=5

Well here's the thing. There is a deadline where teams can designate their franchise players, after which, they are unrestricted free agents. So see once he's put out there, he's probably as good as gone. We couldn't see what Cleveland offers him and then franchise him. The most we could hope for at that point is that he wants to come back here on his own. If we have any intentions on keeping him franchising him is the best option.

I think he's about as close to untradeable on this team as it gets. Why would we trade him???

Franchising him may piss him off, but maybe, just maybe we might be more encouraged by the team next year with our new coach and he may decide that the team has more promise.

Didn't Corey Simon also get franchised and got traded?

I also feel the same way with Bentley as center... he's much better at guard. Give him Kruetz or Hutchinson type money... those two are pretty much the top center and guard in the game. If Bentley refuses to sign, tag and trade him. We don't need another Darren Howard situation going on here... please no more one year rentals and let them walk away without any compensation.

That site is great:

About the franchise tag:

Kinda like what Howard was doing with Dallas. We just offer LeCharles a non-exclusing franchise tag.
http://www.askthecommish.com/freeagency/