Atlanta Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff announced on Friday morning that the team will place the franchise tag on cornerback Brent Grimes. It's essentially a one-year contract worth over $10 million that will allow the Falcons to keep Grimes in Atlanta.
Brent Grimes Won’t Be Signing His Franchise Tender Yet
That’s a lot of money, the average of the five highest paid cornerbacks over the last five years, but, according to Grimes’ agent (via AJC), he has no plans to sign the franchise tender at this time.
“We have no plans to sign the tag at this time,” said Ben Dogra, Grimes’ agent. “We hope to be able to continue to discuss [through] all the issues at the appropriate time.”
Once a player gets hit with the franchise tag, he loses a lot of leverage. The Falcons basically control his rights -- a team could give up two first round picks for a franchise-tagged player, but that won’t happen -- and players usually don’t like it when their movement is restricted.
So, the only leverage Grimes has right now is to not sign the tender and stay away from the offseason program. He could choose to take this all the way to training camp and sign his tender only a few days before the season, missing the entire offseason program. That’s the only leverage he has here -- the threat to sit out.
For his part, Dimitroff says the two sides will continue talking with the hopes of locking him up.
“We are looking forward to continuing discussions with his representatives. We are excited about having him back for the next year, if not more. This is a good thing for us as an organization.”
Until a longterm deal is struck, Grimes could be sitting out.
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