This year marks the NFL’s 30th anniversary of introducing the franchise tag. It was initially introduced as part of the 1993 collective bargaining agreement, allowing teams to keep pending free agents on standardized one-year contracts.
As of this past Tuesday, all 32 NFL teams are now able to place a franchise tender on a player prior to the March 7 deadline. Those players can choose to sign the tag, agree to a contract extension, be traded, or in some rare cases players will hold out.
