Bengals opt not to use franchise tag as deadline passes

The deadline to franchise tag players has passed, and as expected, the Cincinnati Bengals have passed on using it.

Coming into the deadline, there was little-to-no chance of the Bengals using it, despite having a pair of candidates in safety Jessie Bates III and linebacker Germaine Pratt. While they’re important players, the tag would have put them on one-year contracts that weren’t advantageous to the team.

Tagging Bates for a second-straight year would have cost well over $15 million. Tagging Pratt would cost over $20 million.

Bates III is expected to hit the open market and could command an annual salary of over $14 million annually. The market for Pratt should be strong as well. They were key players for the Bengals, especially as their defense played a key factor in another AFC Championship Game run.

Both players were also drafted by Cincinnati, so it is both a positive and negative that the team is struggling to retain homegrown talent, clearly meaning they have been drafting well as of late.

The Bengals also got a small win with Lamar Jackson getting the non-exclusive franchise tag, which means he will be able to talk to other teams in the free agency process.