[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by O.city

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/07/16/m...r-goodell-nfl#

Little insight on what happened. I didn't know the franchise tag had changed in how it's formulated

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Eric Berry and franchise tag thoughts
Deadlines drive action in the NFL, but there wasn’t much driving being done Friday, when the deadline came and went for signing franchise-tagged players to long-term deals.

Last year, all of the tagged players except Jason Pierre-Paul (for obvious reasons) got multi-year contracts. This year, Chiefs safety Eric Berry, Rams cornerback Trumaine Johnson, Bears receiver Alshon Jeffery and Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins will spend 2016 under one-year contracts.
The lack of deals flows largely from the revised formula for determining the franchise tag. No longer determined by averaging the cap numbers of the five highest-paid players at the position in the prior year, the franchise tag is now calculated by taking the tag amounts at a given position for the past five years, adding them together, and dividing the sum by the total combined salary caps for the last five years. The resulting percentage is then applied to the current year’s salary cap.

In English, this means the tag for each position has settled on a specific percentage that has essentially locked into place. As the cap goes up, the franchise tag will go up, regardless of what the market does.
That’s why, for example, Chiefs safety Eric Berry will make $10.8 million this year—an amount more than any other safety will earn in 2016 on a multi-year deal. Over the last five years, the franchise tag for safeties has accounted for 6.95 percent of the salary cap. The market at the position hasn’t kept.

That’s also why the Chiefs and Berry didn’t work out a new contract; with $10.8 million in the bank for 2016 and, by rule, a 20-percent raise next year if the Chiefs tag him again (i.e., $12.96 million), Berry had no reason to accept anything less than the sum of his 2016 and 2017 tag amounts as fully-guaranteed payments at signing. Given the league-wide market at the position, the Chiefs felt no compulsion to give Berry $23.76 million fully-guaranteed at signing.

As a result, Berry will play this year under the tag. Next year, the Chiefs will tag him at $12.96 million (less likely) or let the actual safety market determine his value (more likely).