What should the Bears do with their franchise tag?
As of today and going until March 8th, NFL teams have the option to use the franchise tag on one pending free agent. A franchise tag occurs when an NFL team stops a free agent from going into the open market during the offseason with a guaranteed contract for one year. Each team can only use one franchise tag each season. When it comes to the money of it, it is a really complicated equation that takes into consideration the average salary of the top players at the same positions. The tag can be good or bad for both teams and players.
In 2021, the Chicago Bears franchise-tagged Allen Robinson for $17.98 million. It is fair to say that this was clearly not a good decision from Ryan Pace. However, Robinson might be the only option the Bears have this off-season if they want to use the tag again. While there was some hope that Robinson could come back with the change of the coaching staff, it doesn't look that way anymore.
I am fairly confident that the best way to use the franchise tag this off-season is to not use it at all. The Bears could have somewhere around 40 million in cap space in a couple of weeks. I don't think that using half of that for Robinson would be a brilliant move. Ryan Poles needs to use his available money wisely and this starts with not using the tag.
