Cincinnati Bengals elect to use franchise tag on place-kicker Shayne Graham

by Josh Kirkendall on Feb 16, 2009 5:29 PM EST in Contracts

Just because you have the ability to use the franchise tag, doesn't mean one has to use it. Unless, of course, long-term negotiations stall and using said tag enables team to further negotiate a deal that is in the team's and player's best interests.

On Monday, the Bengals elected to use that franchise tag on place kicker, Shayne Graham, allowing him to earn $2,483,000, all of it guaranteed once he signs the tender.

Graham is the third Bengals player tagged in as many seasons, the last being Stacy Andrews who the team couldn't get signed to a long-term deal during the last off-season; the first being Justin Smith who signed a massive deal with San Francisco after his "franchise" season of two quarterback sacks.

Graham now has the opportunity of removing an interesting curse of Bengals players performing under expectations -- therefore, not worth the cost -- during the season in which they were franchised.

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2.5M/yr is not an outrageous salary. Hopefully he will make the pressure kicks in future.

I guess the main thing to take from this move is that TJ is a step closer to the door.

by R.F. Mehl on Feb 16, 2009 6:37 PM EST reply actions

2.5 mil isn’t bad for a reasonably consistent kicker. I’m not sure that he would have got too much interest in FA though, due to his history of high-profile misses. I reckon letting him get a feel for the market would have been worth it and would have got us a longer-term deal in the end.
I still believe the transition tag for TJ was the way to go. It would have kept him happy by not discouraging other teams from talking to him and would have meant that we wouldn’t have to commit long-term to an ageing reciever.
Ah well. Typical Mike Brown tag use.

by nz on Feb 16, 2009 6:45 PM EST reply actions

Shayne is solid. Good move.

by Mike Boyd on Feb 16, 2009 6:50 PM EST reply actions

Utter waste of money

Don’t get me wrong, I’d resign Graham in a heartbeat, but the Bengals hit the “Buy Now” button on the EBay of NFL Free Agents. Maybe I’m oblivious living out of the Bengals home market, but I have not seen the long line of teams salivating to sign Shayne Graham. The Bengals could have let him test the market and signed him for less. If he was signed away, who cares, kickers are a dime a dozen.

I wish they hadn’t used the tag at all.

"Ryan, Things in here don't react too well to bullets." - Marko Ramius

by TarZander on Feb 16, 2009 8:01 PM EST reply actions

What he said.

by TheWalrus1971 on Feb 16, 2009 9:07 PM EST up reply actions

I can’t think of another time I’ve seen the franchise tag used on a kicker… although considering how cheap it is I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

Bleeding Green Nation - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

by JasonB on Feb 16, 2009 8:27 PM EST reply actions

It has been used, actually.

We discussed this one earlier, but…

The Denver Broncos franchise-tagged Jason Elam in 2002.
The New England Patriots franchise-tagged Adam Vinatieri in 2004.
The Seattle Seahawks franchise-tagged Josh Brown in 2007.

Of those three, well…the Pats won the Super Bowl that same year, but c’mon…it was Vinatieri and this was the Pats!

So we have a 33% chance of this working out for the best. Hmm.

by TheWalrus1971 on Feb 16, 2009 9:12 PM EST up reply actions