Why Do NFL Players Hate to Get Franchise Tagged? Ex-Chiefs QB Explains Using the Tee Higgins Example

Last year, the Cincinnati Bengals failed to reach a long-term agreement with elite WR2 Tee Higgins. They ultimately placed the franchise tag on him before later negotiating a one-year deal worth around $22 million in the summer. Higgins then went on to have a bounce-back season, recording a career-high 10 TDs.

However, he finds himself in the exact same predicament in 2025, as he was tagged for the second straight year—this time earning just over $26 million, thanks to a wave of massive WR deals last summer—by Cincy’s penny-pinching owners. It’s rare to see a player tagged twice in a row, as it can often create animosity between player and team. Whether that will be the case for Higgins remains to be seen.

There are three types of franchise tags, but the most commonly used one is the “non-exclusive franchise tag”. This requires that a team pay a player the average of the top five salaries at their position, or 120 percent of their salary the previous year, whichever is higher. The player can negotiate with other teams, but their original team can match any offer, or receive two 1st-round picks in exchange.

The high salary sounds nice, but the one-year deal is not beloved by any professional athletes. And former longtime NFL backup QB Chase Daniel knows exactly why.

On X, formerly Twitter, he broke down why players hate the tag so much. Especially when they’re tagged twice in a row, which has only happened “13 or 14” times by Daniel’s count.

“1st-round picks, you cannot get to free agency. What is free agency? Free agency is making money. And when you can’t make money and you’re held back from the free market, like Tee has been, you play on a one-year, fully guaranteed deal,” Daniel said.

“Right now, it’s 26 and some change. He’s probably worth 30 a year. If he decides to play on the franchise tag again, what happens if he gets hurt? The long-term security and the long-term money is not coming,” he added.

The players disliking the tag should not come as a surprise. No joke: the franchise tag came into being as the result of Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen’s fear of losing John Elway. The franchise tag was originally called “the Elway Rule” — although, informally.

There’s a long history of player antipathy towards the franchise tag

In 1993, the league was negotiating its 4th CBA. Free agency was on the menu for the players, while a salary cap was on the minds of the owners. Win-win for both sides, right? However, Bowlen held the negotiations hostage out of fear that the free agency situation would lead to Elway’s departure from Denver.

He eventually suggested what became the franchise tag—though its original intent was strictly for QBs—which gave teams another tool to keep their best players.

Since then, the league has also introduced the “exclusive franchise tag”, which is the same as the non-exclusive except for the fact that no other teams can negotiate with the player. There’s also the “transition tag”, which is the same as the non-exclusive except for two things: it’s the average of the top 10 rather than the top five salaries, and they receive no compensation if another team negotiates a long-term deal with said player.

Players have long had issues with different aspects of the franchise tag. Back in 1998, just a few years after the franchise tag’s original implementation, Sean Gilbert refused his. Washington tagged him, but he negotiated a lucrative new deal with the Carolina Panthers. He departed, and Washington received two 1st-rounders.

In 2008, Terrell Suggs made a fuss because he wanted to be tagged as a defensive end rather than a linebacker. Being labeled as the former would pay him more on the tag. He and the Baltimore Ravens settled out of court. Jimmy Graham tried to get tagged as a WR rather than a TE in 2014, but his attempt was rejected.

Four years later, Drew Brees also filed a grievance, stating that the new CBA didn’t specify whether the three-tag limit per player was reset if the player changed teams. Brees won, which means no player can be tagged more than three times.

Le’Veon Bell and Davante Adams, in 2018 and 2022, respectively, also threatened to hold out after they were tagged. Bell’s holdout lasted the entire season, while Adams’ resulted in a trade to the Las Vegas Raiders, where he received the five-year deal he wanted.

Based on the reactions from players who have been tagged, the NFLPA, and the reasoning for the franchise tag’s implementation in the first place back in the early 1990s, it’s clear that this tool benefits teams, not players. It pays them well, sure, but it leaves them without a safety net in case they get injured or have a down year.

Unfortunately, because it can only affect 32 players a year out of the over 2,000 in the NFLPA, the push to remove the franchise tag has never gained enough steam for the NFLPA to really challenge the owners on it.

However, the NFLPA did win a small victory during the 2020 CBA negotiations by pushing through an amendment that limits teams to either the franchise tag or the transition tag each year, but not both.