In little surprise, do not expect the Buffalo Bills to use their franchise tag during the 2024 offseason.
The Bills generally haven’t used the tag many times in their team history, only five times ever. The last time was back in 2016 (Cordy Glenn), meaning the duo of general manager Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott have never opted to use it on a player.
That’s not going to change in 2024.
Last week, the deadline to use the tag opened. Then the NFL announced the salary cap total for next year and it did see a nice increase which helped the Bills out in terms of their own cap space.
While the Bills do have more than 20 players set to be free agents, the tag requires a hefty amount of salary cap space. Buffalo doesn’t have any at all.
If the Bills wanted to use it, a candidate for the franchise tag might be defensive end Leonard Floyd who led the team in sacks in 2023 (10.5). The tag is essentially a one-year contract designed to give teams and players time to work out a long-term contract.
For a pass rusher like Floyd, it would could the Bills $21.3 million. Buffalo is $45M over the salary cap. Beane will have to restructure and work out the contracts of numerous players in order to just get under that, let alone use the franchise tag.
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