The official deadline has come and gone on the National Football League’s calendar for teams to declare the use of any franchise or transition tag for the coming year. In total, there were eight teams who decided to utilize the option to tag a player, and the Kansas City Chiefs were one of those teams.
The Chiefs were the first team to actually use the franchise tag in ’22 when they placed it on left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. as a way to keep him from reaching free agency. The franchise tag is a way for a franchise to control the future of a player by restricting his freedom to sign with another team, but the player is compensated in return to the tune of the average salary of the five highest-paid players at his position.
For the Chiefs, the moment that Brown signs the franchise tag is the moment the Chiefs will have to contend with a $16.5 million cap figure on the books, but for now it also keeps Brown from hitting the open market and switching teams.
The Kansas City Chiefs were among the eight teams to utilize the franchise tag to their advantage this offseason.
The Chiefs have been very positive about working out a long-term deal with Brown, and with the tag in use, there’s now no urgency to get anything done anytime soon. The Chiefs can now focus on free agency and the coming draft if they’d like before coming to terms with Brown on a long-term deal. The Chiefs have reached contract extensions with other players in the early summer in years past, and it’s a natural time of year for teams to take care of business when activity is much slower elsewhere.
Overall, eight teams used the tag this year and here’s a list of every team and the players affected.
- Green Bay Packers – Davante Adams, wideout
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Chris Godwin, wideout
- Miami Dolphins – Mike Gesicki, tight end
- Dallas Cowboys – Dalton Schultz, tight end
- Kansas City Chiefs – Orlando Brown Jr., tackle
- Cincinnati Bengals – Jessie Bates, safety
- Jacksonville Jaguars – Cam Robinson, tackle
- Cleveland Browns – David Njoku, tight end