The NFL franchise tag deadline passed Tuesday with just two teams using the official tag designation, but the deadline spurred a series of team business dealings nonetheless. Here are five winners and five losers from the activity — and what they mean with the legal tampering window of free agency mere days away:
Winners
J.J. McCarthy’s chance at starting: The 10th overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft hasn’t yet locked up the Minnesota Vikings’ starting quarterback job. But as he plans to return from a training camp meniscus tear that required two surgeries, his path to starting the 2025 season received a bump on Tuesday. Despite the Vikings winning 14 games with bridge quarterback Sam Darnold last season, the club did not place a $40 million franchise tag on Darnold, who is likely to command more total guarantees and perhaps a multiyear extension from a quarterback-needy team across the league. The Vikings and Darnold haven’t closed the door on a reunion. And Minnesota could make a strong case to the QB that head coach Kevin O’Connell and the club’s talented roster are Darnold’s clearest path toward avoiding the instability he weathered earlier in his career. But after Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams reached a deal to stay put, Darnold became the top free-agent quarterback on many teams’ lists. In a year with a weak quarterback draft class, expect Darnold to receive offers to cash in — and McCarthy to watch closely.
Micah Parsons: The Cowboys and defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa preempted the tag deadline with a four-year, $80 million extension with $52 million in guarantees, multiple sources confirmed to Yahoo Sports. With all due respect to Odighizuwa and the generational money he just made, his fellow defensive front member also emerges a winner on three fronts. The first: Had the Cowboys not reached this deal, they planned to place the $25.1 million franchise-tag on Odighizuwa, all of which would have counted against their 2025 cap, thus complicating extension talks for Parsons. Now Dallas has more flexibility to strike deals — also because of reason two, which is that Odighizuwa’s $20 million a year deal cashes in below the $22-27 million range sources around the league expected he’d command. Count three: Parsons wants to dominate individually and as a defensive unit. Locking up Odighizuwa returns a defender who can clog the interior while Parsons swims upfield.
Joe Burrow*: Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow lands on the winners list with an asterisk, because he comes out ahead at the tag deadline but shouldn’t feel too confident yet about his free-agency outlook. The Bengals placed a second straight franchise tag on receiver Tee Higgins, who will earn $26.2 million fully guaranteed in 2025 if no long-term deal is reached. The win for Burrow: His No. 2 receiver is still on the roster, Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase forming the most lethal receiver duo in the league. The cause for asterisk: A true win would have been reaching a long-term deal with Higgins — and ideally also a deal with Chase, the defending receiving triple-crown winner. Instead, contract stalemates dating back a year continue and the chance for Higgins to be traded remains a viable threat. Until Higgins has a long-term deal, Burrow should be wary.
Caleb Williams: The Chicago Bears hired a top head-coaching candidate when they landed Ben Johnson. But Johnson’s offensive brilliance in Detroit relied in large part on an offensive line far more dominant than Chicago’s shaky 2024 unit. Trading a sixth-round pick for guard Jonah Jackson (and his $17.5 million 2025 salary) offers Williams more than just a talent upgrade. Before his 2024 season with the Los Angeles Rams, Williams started 57 games at left guard for the Lions and Johnson. He’ll know his play-caller’s scheme and be able to help fellow linemen run play calls more cohesively a year after Williams took a league-high 68 sacks for a league-high 466 yards. The quarterback will need to get rid of the ball more quickly in his second year. But with protection upgrades and more stability than his three-coordinator rookie year, Williams’ resources are rounding into form.
Matthew Stafford: Several reasons loomed for why the Rams and Stafford would be better together. But when Los Angeles gave its veteran quarterback permission to explore the market, the New York Giants and Las Vegas Raiders were quick to jump in with offers. Each may have given Stafford slightly more financial upside. But neither club’s roster or coaching infrastructure comes close to pacing that of the Rams. Now Stafford gets a pay bump and a chance to return to a contender that fared well in the playoffs. Consider receiver Puka Nacua, who has caught 184 passes for 2,476 yards and nine touchdowns in just two seasons with Stafford and the Rams, an adjacent winner.
Losers
Lovers of suspense Fans who love drama might enjoy franchise-tag designations, with the suspense building from March to July as teams and players determine whether they can find common ground on a deal. But after a five-year stretch with 9.2 tags per year on average, only two received the designation this season — the fewest franchise tags since 1994, per ESPN Stats and Info. This year’s recipients, Higgins and Kansas City Chiefs guard Trey Smith, were born five years later. Fans may celebrate their teams finding alternative solutions and the league may celebrate the rising salary cap that has helped teams afford to lock up their stars. But talk-show hosts will need to find other fodder for July dog days. NFL scriptwriters, do better next year.
Teams with RB deals on the horizon: Kudos to Saquon Barkley for resetting the running back market with a two-year extension worth $41.2 million, and kudos to the Philadelphia Eagles for extending their 2,000-yard rusher when he still had two years left on the books — and thus can average lucrative new money with an existing lower salary. Barkley’s deal, and its timing, resemble closely the two-year, $38 million extension the San Francisco 49ers awarded Christian McCaffrey last spring after their own Super Bowl appearance. So why are there losers here? As a whole, running backs may see a slight bump commensurate with a rising salary cap. But evaluators do not view McCaffrey and Barkley in similar veins to the league’s other great running backs, much less the average to good ones who happen to be approaching their next paydays. Will teams encounter more pushback for declining to match the contracts of Barkley and McCaffrey until players approach that level of impact? Evaluators and agents across the league consider these two as outliers rather than a trend, so a dose of realism may be needed for their counterparts.
WR-needy teams: The 49ers traded Deebo Samuel to the Washington Commanders and the Bengals tagged Higgins. That leaves a limited free-agent receiver class for needy teams like the New England Patriots and Tennessee Titans. Davante Adams is one of the stronger options after the Jets cut him, as Adams’ 2024 individual production (1,063 yards and eight touchdowns) far outweighed his two clubs’ final records. But he’s 32 years old compared to Samuel and Higgins’ 29 and 26 years, respectively. And the rest of the market is similarly aging, with 31-year-old Stefon Diggs, 31-by-the-season Amari Cooper and 29-year-old Chris Godwin. Add in a slew of injuries to these free agents, and a weaker receiver draft class, and demand will outweigh supply.
AFC interior defensive linemen: The AFC has seemed like the far more talented conference the last couple years. And yet, breaking through the Chiefs in the conference title game continues to elude heavy hitters like the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens. The rare success against Patrick Mahomes and Co. have come when the Chiefs’ offensive line breaks down. So defenders across the AFC should have been rooting for the Chiefs to let right guard Trey Smith walk. Instead, Kansas City made Smith one of two tag recipients across the league this year. Joining center Creed Humphrey and left guard Joe Thuney, this group should be one of the stronger interior line groups as the Chiefs aim to rebound from their Super Bowl loss. AFC defensive tackles, beware.
The San Francisco 49ers’ bully ball: The 49ers have routinely elevated players to produce more favorably than they might have without head coach Kyle Shanahan’s scheme. They still have talented weapons, including McCaffrey, receiver Brandon Aiyuk and tight end George Kittle. So perhaps Samuel leaving for Washington isn’t insurmountable on the talent end. But they’ll need to think intentionally about who replaces the juice they’d received from Samuel, who literally responds to a name that’s a tribute to his bully mentality. San Francisco’s loss is Washington’s gain as Commanders head coach Dan Quinn and general manager Adam Peters (a former Niners executive who knows Samuel well) gain a player who embodies the toughness they preach.
The New York Giants and Las Vegas Raiders: News technically broke three days before the tag deadline, but the Rams and Stafford’s reworked deal was in concert with this chapter of the NFL schedule. Los Angeles’ gain is New York and Las Vegas’ loss, as each team discussed a potential deal with Stafford before the Rams brought him back. Neither has a clear plan at quarterback now, without an obvious returning starter and with the third and sixth picks in the 2025 NFL Draft. Both teams knew they needed a quarterback a year ago and continue to languish in that purgatory. Might the multiyear desperation prompt a trade?
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