Talking NFL

Yesterday, we had the first victim of the off-season game of Franchise Tag. Defensive end Justin Smith of the Cincinnati Bengals, who will make $8,644,000 in ‘07, but will not be able to test the free agent market.

As you can tell, he’s a bit pissed-off by that…

A quick refresher on how the Franchise Tag works is available on Wikipedia.

Here’s a look at some other players who might get tagged before the February 22nd deadline:

- Dwight Freeney (DE), Indianapolis Colts:
The world champs have a tight salary cap situation looming, but they probably won’t risk letting Freeney go. Despite a bit of an off year (6 sacks), Freeney is still considered a huge impact player entering the prime of his career, as he will turn 27 next week (Happy Birthday, Dwight! We’re giving you the Franchise Tag. Don’t party too hard…)

- Asante Samuel (CB), New England Patriots:
As Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe reports, it’s looking more likely that the Pats won’t want to risk losing Asante after his breakout season. Not only did he pick off 10 passes this year in the regular season, but he’s run back 3 picks for touchdowns in the last 5 Patriot playoff games. Also, how do you think Coach Belichick would react to the Jets scooping up Samuel (and you know his former defensive back coach Mangenious is drooling over the thought like a 20 oz. Porterhouse Steak)? Not so good, me thinks…

- Adalius Thomas (LB), Baltimore Ravens:
He’s positioned to be one of the prime linebacker targets in free agency, unless of course, the Ravens pull the trigger on the tag. While I don’t agree with the Baltimore Sun’s Mike Preston that a long term deal for Thomas is a risky proposition, I do agree that the franchise tag move is the right one (besides, take a look at Mike Preston’s picture - I’m not going to argue with him; he’s a mean looking dude!).

Of course, if you thought Thomas wasn’t considered the # 1 linebacker free agent to hit the market, then you were probably thinking of:

- Lance Briggs (LB), Chicago Bears:
Who is almost assuredly getting the tag, seeing just how thin the LB crop is after these two guys. However, as Brad Biggs (no relation) of the Chicago Sun Times says, there could be an issue with Lance’s agent; Mr. “Next Question!” Drew Rosenhaus. Of course, Drew was too busy congratulating himself to comment on whether or not Briggs would hold-out if he was given the tag:

‘Lance and I thought it was best to play out the contract,” Rosenhaus said of the decision to pass on a six-year offer worth roughly $33 million last April. ”God bless him, he’s had one of the great years. We made a good decision, and now people are patting us on the back for making it. We will make it work.”

Great work, Drew; congratulations. By the way, you’re still a jerkoff. Well, except for that one time where you saved a kid’s life. I guess that was a pretty cool thing to do.

Ironically enough, the kid he saved from drowning was from Chicago. Wonder if he’s a Bears fan…