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A.J. Green has been an incredibly perplexing part of the Cincinnati Bengals offseason so far.
Plenty of evidence points to the Bengals using the franchise tag on A.J. Green. Adding to this, a different report suggested the CBA negotiations stalled contract talks with Green and his reps.
The latter seems to make it even more obvious the team will slap a tag on Green — and it sure doesn’t hurt that potential No. 1 pick Joe Burrow has made it clear he wants to play with the star wideout.
All that out of the way, now is probably a nice time to dive into exactly what the tag would look like. Here’s where it stands against other likely franchise tag candidates:
Projected Franchise Tags:
Dak Prescott: $27M/$32M
AJ Green: $18M
Yannick Ngakoue : $17.8M
Chris Jones: $16.1M
Shaq Barrett: $15.8M
Matthew Judon: $15.8M
Bud Dupree: $15.8M
Brandon Scherff: $14.8M
Justin Simmons: $11.5M
Hunter Henry: $10.6M
Derrick Henry: $10.3M— Spotrac (@spotrac) March 3, 2020
It isn’t too shocking to see the exorbitant average prices of star wideouts push Green’s number that high — but it is interesting in context against other positions.
Rest assured the Bengals don’t have any problem paying that number — the team is in no way hurting for space, a notion soon to be strengthened by departures like Andy Dalton and Cordy Glenn.
That Green would prefer a long-term deal is the only hiccup, but one both parties can work on into the summer.
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