Carl Nicks is likely not a Saint next year

Yeah, they want to get signed to a long term contract and they are getting robbed of a year when the franchise is slapped on them. The avg. career for an NFL player is something like 4 years. It's a pretty big deal to the player.

 

Two things about that, though. A player good enough to merit the franchise tag -- barring injury -- is going to have much longer than a 4 year career. In fact, already has, if I'm not mistaken, since a player with less than 4 years' seniority can only become a restricted free agent and wouldn't merit the franchise tag anyway.

Also, the rules of the franchise tag say the player who is tagged must be paid the greater amount of a. the average salary of the league's top 5 paid players at his position, or b. a 20% increase over his previous year's salary. So the franchised player is going to make out pretty well for that one year.

And don't forget, the use of the tag isn't necessarily the end of negotiations. The Saints could tag Nicks on Monday and give him the long term deal he wants on Tuesday. The tag merely prevents the player from shopping around. While possible, this isn't a likely scenario, because a team can only use the franchise tag on one player per season. Its a way to buy time with one player's negotiations, but only one.