On Friday, the NFL released the official franchise and transition tag values for the upcoming season, The MMQB’s Albert Breer tweets. Those values are based on the $188.2MM salary cap that was also announced on Friday, and are as follows:
Franchise Tag
- Quarterback – $24.865MM
- Running back – $11.214MM
- Wide receiver – $16.787MM
- Tight end – $10.387MM
- Offensive lineman – $14.067MM
- Defensive end – $17.128MM
- Defensive tackle – $15.209MM
- Linebacker – $15.443MM
- Cornerback – $16.022MM
- Safety – $11.150MM
- Kicker/punter – $4.971MM
Transition Tag
- Quarterback – $22.783MM
- Running back – $9.099MM
- Wide receiver – $14.794MM
- Tight end – $8.815MM
- Offensive lineman – $12.866MM
- Defensive end – $14.360MM
- Defensive tackle – $12.378MM
- Linebacker – $13.222MM
- Cornerback – $13.703MM
- Safety – $9.531MM
- Kicker/punter – $4.537MM
What is a transition tag
I think it’s a tag much like the franchise tag, but rather than it being an average of the top 5 positional salaries it averages their top 10.
Transition tag gives the player an option to negotiate with other teams but the original team has the right to match any offer or collect quite a bit of draft capital (two first rounders even). There have been all kinds of issues with poison pill contracts which have steadily been stamped out.
With the monetary value of the tags in 2019 the only positions which look interesting are safety, defensive tackle and tight end. An extraordinary linebacker (Lawrence Taylor) would hold interest at the linebacker amount.