What is the difference between a "Franchise Tag" and a "Tender Offer" in the NFL

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   OutDaremagazineposted 11 years ago

   What is the difference between a "Franchise Tag" and a "Tender Offer" in the NFL?
   
   Just reading about Mike Williams and the Steelers contract negotiations and saw that THIS year he did not sign a $2.7m first-round tender offer but the Steelers could always Franchise Tag him at the end of the year. What is the difference between the two?

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2. 72

   BLACKANDGOLDJACKposted 11 years ago

   Wallace not Williams. I have been following this situation closely.
   
   The Steelers could have put the franchise tag on Wallace and paid him $9.5M for this season. But they took a calculated risk and tendered Wallace as a restricted free agent. Any team could have signed him to an offer sheet. The Steelers could have matched the offer if they wanted to keep him for that amount of money. But if the Steelers didn’t match the offer, they would have gotten a first-round draft pick from the other team. No other team made Wallace an offer because they didn’t want to give up a first-round draft pick.
   
   Wallace didn’t appear at the start of training camp today and couldn’t participate anyway unless he signed a contract, either the one-year restricted free agent $2.7M contract or a long-term deal he and the Steelers worked out. So the Steelers said they are suspending all contract negotiations until Wallace signs for the $2.7M one-year contract.
   
   So we’ll see what happens. The Steelers have not shown a lot of patience with malcontent wide receivers, like Santonio and Plaxico. The Steelers have two other smallish speedburner type wide receivers similar to Mike Wallace in Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders.

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      OutDaremagazineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Black and Gold, sorry about the name mixup!

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      Hubdooblrposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm not sure what Wallace is thinking with this holdout. I've been a Steelers fan my whole life, and I can't remember this ever working.

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   Hubdooblrposted 11 years ago

   Blackandgold gave a great answer, but he skipped one part.
   
   A "franchise tag" simply means that a team can pick one (and only one) player who is an unrestricted free agent, and put the franchise tag on him. This means that:
   
   The player is offered a 1 year contact equal to: the average salary of the top 5 players at his position, or 120% of his previous years salary, which ever is higher. The player is also "tagged", and therefore cannot talk to other teams.
   
   Personally, I hate the way that some owners are abusing the franchise tag, but the players agreed to it in the new C.B.A, so oh well.
   
   It's like we used to say in the Army: "U.S.M.C."  (U Signed the Motherf*ckin Contract).

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