Feb 5, 2025; New Orleans, LA, USA; Kansas City Chiefs guard Trey Smith (65) in a press conference ahead of Super Bowl LIX at New Orleans Marriott.

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NFL Franchise Tag Deadline 2025: Only Tee Higgins And Trey Smith Tagged

The franchise tag in 2025 was almost non existent!

Feb 5, 2025; New Orleans, LA, USA; Kansas City Chiefs guard Trey Smith (65) in a press conference ahead of Super Bowl LIX at New Orleans Marriott.

The NFL’s offseason is moving along nicely so far with the week-long Scouting Combine coming to an end on Sunday, followed by the end of the franchise tag deadline just a couple days later. The new 2025 league year will officially start on March 12, which is when all players without contracts will officially become free agents.

The NFL has three types of tags, which are the non-exclusive franchise tag, exclusive franchise tag, and the transition tag. Generally speaking, whenever the term franchise tag is used on a player it refers to the non-exclusive franchise tag.

The non-exclusive franchise tag pays the player an average of the top 5 players’ salaries in that position over a period of the last 5 years or gives him a 120% increase depending on whichever is greater. A player is free to negotiate with other teams, but his current team can match the offer, or receive 2 first-round picks as compensation if the player signs elsewhere.

The exclusive franchise tag raises the amount of money involved. It is the average of the top 5 players at the position for the current year, or 120 percent of his previous salary, whichever is greater. With this tag only the player’s current team has the right to negotiate further. Mostly this tag is applied to those players for whom teams will be easily willing to give up two first-round draft picks.

The transition tag is the one which is least used, and that is mainly because there is no compensation should a player sign elsewhere. However, it is the average of the top 10 salaries at the position, and the current team has first right of refusal.

Players Who Received The Franchise Tag

This year marked the lowest number of tags with just 2 since 1994. The only players to receive the tag this year were wide receiver Tee Higgins of the Cincinnati Bengals, and guard Trey Smith of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Only two players — Tee Higgins and Trey Smith — were tagged this year, the fewest number of players tagged since 1994, when Eric Green and Henry Thomas were tagged, per @EpKap.

There were eight players given the franchise tag last year and there have been at least six players…
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 4, 2025

The Bengals tagged Higgins for the second straight year in an effort to get a long-term deal done with the receiver. Last year, the Bengals paid him $21.8 million when they tagged him for the first time. This year, he will earn $26.1 million which is an increase of 20%.

As for Smith, this is the first tag placed on him by the Chiefs, and he will be earning a massive $23.4 million this season making him one of the highest earning guards in the league.

Players Who Could Have Received The Tag

As mentioned, this year only two players received the franchise tag, while last year the number was 8, and in 2023 it was 6. Nevertheless, there were a few other players who could have received the tag.

Osa Odighizuwa

Cowboys defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa could have received the franchise tag but his deal was completed just before the deadline. Odighizuwa signed a new 4-year deal worth $80 million that includes a $20 million signing bonus and a $58 million guarantee.

Sam Darnold

The Minnesota Vikings had a huge decision to make regarding quarterback Sam Darnold. On the one hand, Darnold had a career-year in his first season with the Vikings and took them to the playoffs while rookie J.J. McCarthy sat out the entirety of the season with an injury. On the other hand, while they were able to play Darnold on a $10 million one-year deal, the tag would have meant Minnesota had to dish out in excess of $40 million.

Chris Godwin

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their WR2 Chris Godwin are still unable to reach a mutual figure. Tampa has already tagged Godwin twice before and if they wanted to do it for a third time, it would have been financially criminal. A tag this time around would have resulted in 144 percent of the previous salary or the franchise tag number for the highest position, which is the quarterback. That’s a whole lot of money for a wide receiver even in today’s market.

Jevon Holland

Safety Jevon Holland has had quite a start to his career playing 4 seasons with the Dolphins. However, his production in 2024 dipped considerably from what he had achieved in his three previous years. Perhaps that is why Miami decided against the tag which would have set them back by $18.6 million.

Also Read: Justin Jefferson Explains How Louisiana Has Produced Some of the Most Elite Receivers in the NFL

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Devavrat Kulkarni

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I am a content writer for the NFL team, and joined The Playoffs after working with Sportskeeda and NFL Analysis as an NFL writer. After starting my professional career as a French-to-English translator, working as a content writer is a new adventure for me. I started out in the sports media field for two main reasons: my love for sports in general, especially the NFL, NBA, and Tennis, as well as my passion for writing. The best part of this job is that I get to write a variety of pieces with the freedom to explore content from various angles. It also enables me to stay up to date with the sporting world, which otherwise can be difficult to do in the day-to-day grind. In a world full of chaos, sports unite and entertain like nothing else!