Franchise tag window opens, but Saints unlikely to use it amid cap constraints

By Ross Jackson

The NFL’s franchise tag window opened Tuesday, giving teams the ability to retain key players at a predetermined rate—often as an attempt to land a long-term deal. For the New Orleans Saints, this could have major implications in free agency.

With the Saints already over $40 million over the 2025 salary cap, applying a franchise or transition tag to a player doesn’t make much sense. Applying that tag often carries a hefty price tag, functioning as a one-year deal unless a long-term contract is reached before the deadline.

That’s not conducive for the Saints’ current situation. The price tags vary by position and are based on the average salary of the five highest paid players at each position or 120% of the player’s previous salary. The tagged player gets whichever is higher. At most positions, the Saints simply couldn’t swing that amount at most positions where a player would be considered.

Projected 2025 Franchise Tags (actual figures will be updated when the league salary cap is finalized). pic.twitter.com/XfDaCj8DzS

— Spotrac (@spotrac) February 18, 2025

The Saints’ biggest free agent departures are at cornerback with Paul Adebo ($19.9 million), defensive end with Chase Young ($21.7 million), and tight end with Juwan Johnson ($13.6 million).

None of which are likely to happen due to the mere expense. Even the cheaper transition tags won’t be much of an option for New Orleans.

For reference, the transition tag, which grants right of first refusal but not exclusivity for the tagging team, is the average of the top ten salaries at each position.

The last time the Saints used a tag was with safety Marcus Williams during the 2021 offseason, taking on more than $10 million to keep Williams for another year. Safeties now make over $18 million on the tag as salary caps and contracts have continued to rise since then.

The way that New Orleans will be most impacted by this window will be if a player that they hope to target on the open market gets tagged. 

If the Saints were hoping to make an unlikely run at wide receiver Tee Higgins, that looks to soon be out of the question. Per Bengals Talk SI reporter James Rapien, The Cincinnati Bengals plan to tag him in the hopes of extending him long-term.

So, don’t expect much action, though the Saints have surprised before during this tagging period. Instead, expect the team to be keeping an eye out across the league to see if players that they may look to pursue get held out of free agency because they are retained elsewhere.