It’s Tagging Tuesday, where NFL teams express their appreciation for a player by denying him the right to negotiate a market-appropriate salary!

As of this writing, nine players have had a tag placed on them. Eight have received the dreaded Franchise Tag, giving their current team near-total control over their fate for next year- other teams can negotiate and sign them, but at a cost of two first-round picks. They are:

Josh Allen (LB/DE, jacksonville) and Brian Burns (LB/DE, Carolina)- $24 million

Justin Madubuike (DT, Ratbirds)- $22.1 million

Tee Higgins (WR, Bungles) and Michael Pittman (WR, Clots)- $21.8 million

L’Jarius Sneed (CB, Kansas City) and Jaylon Johnson (CB, Bearistocrats)- $19.8 million

Antoine Winfield Jr. (S, Tampa)- $17.1 million

We also had a sighting of the seldom-used Transition Tag, which costs less but comes with no compensation if another team makes an offer you are unwilling to match.

Kyle Duggar (S- Patriots)-$13 million

None of these are a particular surprise, although the Duggar move is weird given his importance to New England’s semi-functional side of the ball.

Unlike last year, no running backs were tagged, adding insult to injury. Running backs are now not even worth the tag.

Longtime readers of my lunatic mutterings will know that I am somewhat more team/league friendly than some others when it come to things like the draft and the hard salary cap. For American sports, I feel that leagues are healthier and games are better when competition is balanced and everyone has at least a puncher’s chance year to year. The draft gives fans of shitty teams a semi-rational reason to trot back out for another year of abuse, and the salary cap gives at least some assurance that no one team can hoard all the star players.

The franchise tag, though…doesn’t sit right with me. I feel like it goes too far the other direction by inordinately restricting player movement, particularly as applied to players coming off their rookie contracts.* It’s not as bad as MLB- nothing is as bad as MLB when it comes to artificially depressing wages for young players.

For some reason I am ok with the transition tag, because at least the player can get something approximating market value. But given how important things other than money can be to a player (chance to win championships, get out from under a shit coach, etc.) I don’t think my gut reaction bears rational scrutiny.

*The rookie wage scale is an issue for another day.

OTHER NFL NEWS:

-Russell Wilson is a free man! A normal person would probably take a bit of a hit to the ego, knowing that your team would rather set $80 million on fucking fire than have you play for them. Fortunately, Russ seems immune to that sort of introspection. NanoBubbles probably protect him.

Obviously, every QB-needy team outside the Top 5 in the draft is probably going to take at least a look. Assuming there is standard offset language in his Broncos contract, Wilson has little incentive to negotiate a contract that takes up too much of a new team’s cap space, so he will likely be cheap. At 35, he is probably a two-to-three year proposition (although he likely thinks he can play until he’s 50). That makes him a decent bet for teams that might go after a Bo Nix or Michael Penix at the end of the first round- allow them to sit and learn on the Mahomes/Love plan. Right now, my money is on the Raiders or the Vikings, with an option on New England if they decide to trade down out of the top of the draft.

-Seattle cut Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams, leaving them very thin in the secondary. Adams is less of a loss, since he hasn’t been able to stay on the field anyway. Diggs, however, is a long time favorite of this column, having been fucked over by the Matt Patricia Lions in a move that likely also cost them Darius Slay. Kinda hoping the Bills take a run at him to replace Micah Hyde.

WHAT’S ON TONIGHT:

Fuck if I know. I still haven’t seen The Nice Guys, so I’ll probably make a run at that.