Thursday, February 21, 2013
More tag talk for Cincy
By Tim Kavanagh
For the Cincinnati Bengals, the talk has been that they will most likely be using the franchise tag this offseason, as they have a number of impending free agents that they want to retain. Moreover, the most likely candidates for the designation are RT Andre Smith and DE Michael Johnson. But we could be in for a surprise.
Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes that the Bengals could wind up using their tag on a specialist: one of the two placekickers -- Mike Nugent or Josh Brown -- or punter Kevin Huber. Since Nugent was tagged in 2012, his tag tender for 2013 would be around $3.185 million; for the others, it'd be just $2.926 million.
Frankly, it would be quite a shock if the tag were used in this way, but perhaps the Bengals will make serious headway with Smith and Johnson prior to the tag deadline of March 4.
