Bears use the franchise tag on WR Alshon Jeffery: 5 things to know

Jeffery will make over $14.5 million for the 2016 season as of now, but he and the Bears still have time to work out a long-term deal.

By Jared Dubin

Feb 29, 2016 at 3:36 pm ET • 3 min read

The Chicago Bears have placed the franchise tag on wide receiver Alshon Jeffery, the team announced on Monday.

#Bears have placed their franchise tag on WR Alshon Jeffery; can still sign him to a long-term contract through July 15.
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) February 29, 2016

General manager Ryan Pace had previously stated that the team was aggressively negotiating with Jeffery's representatives in an attempt to get a long-term deal done before Tuesday's franchise tag deadline, but those negotiations were apparently unsuccessful (so far).

Because the Bears reportedly used the non-exlusive franchise tag on Jeffery, he will be able to negotiate with other teams. If he reaches an agreement with a non-Bears team, the Bears would have five days to decide whether or not to match the offer. If the Bears match, they keep Jeffery under the terms of the agreement he signed with the other team. If the Bears decline to match, they would receive two first-round draft picks as compensation.

Here are a few more things to know about Jeffery's status moving forward.

1. The money: On Monday morning, the NFL and NFLPA announced the franchise and transition tag values for the 2016 season. The official salary cap figure came in higher than initially expected, and so the tag values did, too. (As Joel Corry of CBSSports.com previously explained, the tag values are based on a complicated formula that is tied to the salary cap.) Wide receivers that play out the season under the franchise tag will receive $14,599,000.

That figure would give Jeffery the fifth-highest cap hit for any wide receiver in 2016, per Spotrac, a website which tracks every NFL contract.

2. Jeffery and the Bears can still negotiate: Just as we saw with players like Dez Bryant and Demaryius Thomas last offseason, teams often use the franchise tag as a way to give themselves more time with which to exclusively negotiate with a player they plan to keep in-house long-term. An extra four and a half months is a long time, and sometimes it goes right down to the wire with players skipping mini-camp and OTAs before signing a long-term deal.

As you can see in their tweet above, the Bears included this fact in their announcement that they'd franchise tagged Jeffery, which likely means they plan on continuing negotiations between now and July 15.

3. What happens if they don't agree? If Jeffery and the Bears don't agree to a long-term deal by July 15, he'd be playing under the tag for the 2015 season. He'd essentially be on a one-year, "prove it" deal, and they'd go through this dance again next offseason.

If they were again unable to come to a long-term agreement and the Bears placed the franchise tag on Jeffery again, his salary would be 120 percent of this year's tag number, or $17,518,800. If he played out a second tagged year and the sides were still unable to reach a long-term accord and the Bears franchised Jeffery for a third time, his salary would then be equal to 144 percent of the previous year's total, or $25,227,072.

4. What does all that mean? Jeffery can make a guaranteed total of $57,344,872 over the next three years if he plays all of them on the franchise tag. He'd have no long-term security for any time beyond each individual season and would be at great risk if he were to suffer a career-changing injury during that time, but that is a whole lot of guaranteed cash, which could affect how negotiations proceed from here on out.

At only 26 years old, Jeffery would still be in his late prime if he were to play the next three years on the tag and then hit the open market as a 28 year-old wideout after the 2018 season. Of course, locking in long-term security up front is important when you play a sport as violent and dangerous as football, so Jeffery and his reps will presumably engage the Bears in attempts to hammer out a long-term deal that sets him up to be paid, and paid well, for a long time.

5. Holdout potential: Assuming he doesn't want to play any time on the tag (a reasonable assumption, given that most players would prefer not to do so), Jeffery could hold out of mini-camp and/or OTAs and/or training camp until he signs an agreeable long-term deal. We see this scenario play out pretty much every season, and it wouldn't be shocking if it were to play out somewhere this year.