Giants Place Franchise Tag on Brandon Jacobs: The Giants officially announced yesterday that they have designated HB Brandon Jacobs at their franchise player.
In every offseason, each team is permitted to designate one of its free agents a franchise player. That player receives a one-year tender that averages the five largest salaries at his position in the previous season. In 2008, the NFL’s five highest-paid running backs earned an average of $6.6 million.
The designation does not prevent the Giants and Jacobs from attempting to reach a long-term deal. What it does do is provide the Giants with protection from losing Jacobs in free agency, which begins on February 27th. The Giants now have the right to match any other team’s offer to Jacobs or the Giants will receive two first-round draft picks as compensation from the team attempting to sign Jacobs.
The deadline for naming a franchise player is February 26th.
“With the deadline approaching it was the right business thing to do at this point, although we are hopeful to get a longer term deal hammered out in the near future,” General Manager Jerry Reese said. “I did speak to Brandon and we had a very good conversation today.”
“I never felt Brandon would be anything but a New York Giant,” said Head Coach Tom Coughlin. “There isn’t any question that when you talk about being a physical football team, he gives you that physical edge as a runner, a pass protector or catching the ball coming out of the backfield. He’s a valuable, valuable part of our team and of the philosophy and the concept by which we play. It’s important for our team going forward that he’s a Giant.”
“They don’t want to let me go and it just buys more time to get a deal done,” Jacobs said. “A deal is going to be done and I am confident in that fact that a deal is going to be done. They just didn’t want to let me hit the market to see what else is out there. They want me in and it is fine with me, because I would rather be here. It is another reason why I don’t really have a problem with it. Now if I didn’t want to be here I would be going off the deep end now, but that is not the fact because I want to be here. My family likes it here. This is where I started and this is kind of where I want to finish. It is really just to franchise me to try to get a deal done.”
“I think both parties will probably come to an agreement here soon on a long-term deal,” said Jacobs. “A lot of guys would be going off the deep end now, which I understand why guys do it and why nobody wants to be franchised. That only happens when guys don’t want to play the rest of their career with that team and they want to see what else is out there. I am in a situation where I want to be here. I want to play here. That doesn’t really bother me.”
“I spoke to Jerry, and that is the reason I am being franchised – buying more time to get a deal done,” Jacobs said.
The only other player the Giants have ever franchised was LT Jumbo Elliott in 1993.
“That (being the Giants’ first franchise player in more than a decade) is telling me that they really want me here,” Jacobs said. “That is why I know for a fact that they are going to buy time to get a long term deal done. If they didn’t want me here they would say, ‘Let him hit the market and see what he gets out there and then offer him toward the end of the whole thing.’ They were pretty good about it, we were pretty good about it, and I feel good about the situation that I will be here at least for one more year if nothing gets done, but I am very confident that something is going to be done soon.”
According to The Daily News, two sources have told the paper that the Giants and Jacobs are not close to a long-term deal. Jacobs is supposedly looking to a deal similar to the one that Cowboys’ HB Marion Barber received last season (7-years, $45 million, $16 million guaranteed). The Giants’ offer is supposedly much lower (7-years, $25 million, $12 million guaranteed) and laden with incentives related to playing time out of concern for Jacobs’ injury-prone nature.
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