March 12 had been shaping up to be a critically important day for NFL owners and players. Not only the deadline for each team to declare the franchise tag on a player they wanted to lock down, Thursday was also the deadline for the NFL’s 2,000-plus players to submit their votes for the proposed collective bargaining agreement that would assure another decade of labor peace in the National Football League.
The former was a 4:00 p.m. ET deadline, the latter right before midnight, but now the CBA vote has been extended by two days.
An update on our CBA vote: pic.twitter.com/d8P5KoFYP6
— NFLPA (@NFLPA) March 9, 2020
The tag deadline, though, appears still fixed at March 12, creating a new wrinkle for teams like Dallas in how they negotiate this week with star players in flux.
Under the terms of the existing CBA, teams had been allowed to use a franchise tag as well as a transition tag, effectively locking up two players on the roster without all the back-and-forth of true contract negotiations.
The new CBA does away with the transition tag. While teams have still been allowed to use the designation, it had been explained that once the new collective bargaining agreement passes, as it is expected to, clubs using both tags would be required to rescind the transition tag and have only one player under a tag of the franchise variety.
That is expected to remain the case with a new voting deadline of Saturday.
The Cowboys, of course, are trying to ink both quarterback Dak Prescott and wideout Amari Cooper to new contracts. With both tags open for use, the front office was expected to franchise Prescott and use the transition label on Cooper if new deals were not finalized before Thursday’s deadline.
It now seems they can revert to that plan if necessary, although with a new CBA that could take effect just 48 hours later, it may not buy the Joneses much time at the bargaining table with their two star players. It’s just a short extension in this game of financial chicken, but as Cowboys fans have seen as recently as last year with DeMarcus Lawrence and Ezekiel Elliott, all it takes is one phone call from a motivated owner to wrap up the haggling in a hurry.
Two extra days may end up making all the difference in the world… or just prolong the inevitable.
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