Inside The Bills

DEs see biggest jump in franchise tag

The NFL franchise tag and transition tag figures are out for 2010 courtesy of the Newark Star-Ledger. And it looks like the big position winner this year is defensive end.

The franchise tag, which is an average of the top five paid players at each position obviously varies based on what top flight players signed new long term deals for big money that particular year. Defensive ends saw the biggest increase in their franchise tag figure from $8.99M in 2009 to a whopping $12.398M. Part of the reason for the big jump in top five average was thanks to Carolina’s Julius Peppers, who played under the top one-year tender of $16.68M in 2009.

I don’t anticipate the Bills using a franchise tag on any of their unrestricted free agents.

Here are the 2010 franchise tags for each position and how they compare to the figures from a year ago. Only the wide receiver and cornerback positions saw slight decreases.

Pos.       2009 Franchise tender         2010 Franchise tender               % change
QB                       $14.65M                                              $16.405M                              11% increase
RB                       $6.62M                                                $8.156M                                 19% increase
WR                      $9.88M                                                $9.521M                                  4% decrease
TE                       $4.46M                                                 $5.908M                               25% increase
OL                       $8.45M                                                $10.731M                             22% increase
DE                       $8.99M                                                $12.398M                             28% increase
DT                       $6.06M                                                $7.003M                              13.5% incr.
LB                       $8.3M                                                   $9.68M                                  15% increase
CB                       $9.96M                                                $9.566M                                 1% decrease
S                          $6.34M                                                $6.455M                                 2% increase
K/P                    $2.48M                                                $2.814M                               12% increase