Broncos safety Justin Simmons had an interview with Bruce Murray and Brady Quinn on SiriusXM NFL Radio on Monday and spoke about the possibility of receiving a one-year franchise tag this offseason.
The NFL and NFLPA have moved the franchise tag deadline back two days, giving Denver general manager John Elway more time to negotiate a long-term deal with Simmons before resorting to using the tag.
Simmons doesn’t think the moved deadline will change much.
“My family and I and obviously Todd [France] — who’s my agent — have talked and we expect to get franchise tagged,” Simmons said. “With them moving the date back, we don’t anticipate it affecting us really at all.”
The franchise tag for safeties is expected to be worth about $12,735,000 this year, according to OverTheCap.com. Simmons noted that when Elway has tagged players in the past, he later came to long-term agreements with those players.
“In terms of the franchise tag, we’re kind of sitting on the optimistic side of things because of in the past when the Broncos have used a tag and Elway’s used it, they’ve always worked out a longterm deal,” Simmons said. “So we’re pretty confident that we’ll be able to work something out.”
Elway previously placed one-year franchise tags on kicker Matt Prater (2012), left tackle Ryan Clady (2013), wide receiver Demaryius Thomas (2015) and outside linebacker Von Miller (2016) before later agreeing to multi-year contract extensions with those players.
Elway may be planning to do the same with Simmons this offseason.
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