Is the franchise tag good or bad for a player?

It's certainly not terrible. They'll get paid the average of the top 5 highest paid salaries in their respective position. So they make good money. Problem is, it is only a one year deal. If, that year, they have a down year, or suffer a terrible injury their value will plummet when they can get a long term deal. The players seem to generally dislike it.

It is bad in most cases.

While it is hard to say that being paid the average salary of the top 5 highest paid players in your position is bad....it really is.

These guys are usually looking for their last big payday. And they want long term deals with a lot of guaranteed money.

The franchise tag, while it ensures a player will be one of the highest paid...is only for one year. The player could get hurt during that year and no more income.

But with a long term deal with a lot of guaranteed money...it does not matter if the guy gets hurt...he will still be getting paid.

But also, the franchise tag makes a guy play at a high level an extra year in order to collect the BIG bucks. Maybe the guy peaked and can not follow up those huge numbers the next year....then the value of any long term contract with guaranteed money....goes way down.

A lot of times it is a one shot deal, and the franchise tag can take away that shot.

The franchise tag isn't really a bad thing, some people see it as management wanting a player to stay with the team even though an agreement on a real contract hasn't been reached. Others see it as the team not letting a player find a team he would like to play for and preventing him from being happy. Players want long term contracts. They want to know that their future is secure, and not getting a real deal is considered a lack of support from the teams upper management. Although no contract is secure in the NFL. The franchise tag does not give you less money, it usually gives you more. It is the average salary of the 5 highest paid players at your position.

Bad. Players almost always hate it for two main reasons.

1) It's a one year contract with no guaranteed money. If you happen to get hurt during your franchise tag year, you might never make another cent as a player ever again. You have no job security whatsoever.

2) Franchise tagged players make the average salary of the 5 best paid players at their position. Nearly all franchise tagged players would be making better money than this if they were signed to a real contract.

It's mostly bad for the reasons stated by others above me. I just wanted to add the reason why the franchise tag is even a rule. It was negotiated with the player's union at the same time that the league allowed free agency. Teams were concerned that they would lose their best player to free agency, so to quell those fears, the players agreed to a franchise tag, but that player would have to be paid an average of the top players at his position.

Basically, the franchise tag is bad for players, but it was agreed to in order to have free agency.

As a player they hate it, as a team it helps sometimes. When a team puts an exclusive tag on a player, it can be for a couple reasons. They cannot agree on a $ figure with the player on a contract and don’t want to lose him to FA, or to keep the team under cap. Most players hate the tag, because they believe they could get a higher price as a FA. It also leaves the player w/o a contract past 1 year, so if they get hurt, next year they are SOL.

usually bad. it's one year of non-guaranteed money, it's a good salary (average of the top 5 players salaries at that position). most players fear that if they are hurt during a tag year that they will be essentially done for their career as damaged goods and not have that guaranteed money.

it can be good for teams to tag a player so they can negotiate a contract with them and not worry about another team trying to swoop in (as long as the player signed the tag contract).

I think it's good. They get a high salary for this year (average of top 5 in their position) and then they get all year to renegotiate or they can go to free agency next year, provided that they don't get franchised again.

bad, yes he gets a huge one year deal, but usually in free agency he could get 4-5x times as much. ($5million guaranteed compared to $20-25million) there is a risk of him getting hurt and not being able to cash in the next offseason