Glossary of Football Terms

The offseason begins on March 15th at 4pm and goes until the new NFL season officially starts. During this time, there are no NFL games played meaning that teams are focused on improving their roster. There are 2 main ways to do this - the NFL free agency period & the NFL Draft. 

Right before the free agency period starts teams can make a last minute attempt to re-sign any players that have either rejected previous contract offers or don't want to come back to the team. If no deal is reached and the team really wants to keep the player, they can opt to franchise tag the player which keeps the player on the team for the next year. Typically, teams will only use tags on key players since the price ($) to keep them under the tag is very high. There are 3 different tags that can be placed on a player. The next 3 definitions will define the differences between those tags. All franchise tags have a length of 1 year. 

The transition tag gives the tagged player a 1 year deal in which the salary is either the average of the top 10 salaries of the player's position or 120% of the player's last year salary (whichever one is higher). However, the player can still negotiate with other teams. If another team offers a better contract, and the player's current team cannot match that contract, the player will sign with the other team. 

This is the most common type of franchise tag used. The salary is the same as the transition tag except it takes into account the average of the top 5 salaries at the players position from last year, not top 10. Similar to the transition tag, the player has all rights to negotiate contracts with other teams. If the player's current team doesn't match the new contract offered by another team, the player will sign with the new team. Here is the difference: this time the player's former team will receive 2 first round picks as compensation.