Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones told reporters on Wednesday that he doesn’t see the team using their franchise tag on any of their unrestricted free agents, per Rowan Kavner.
The news is hardly surprising given the Cowboys cap situation. As things stand right now, the Cowboys are projected to be over the 2014 salary cap by a staggering $21 million or so. Even if they are able to free up some additional cap space by either releasing or asking players like DE DeMarcus Ware, ILB Sean Lee, TE Jason Witten and CB Brandon Carr to restructure their contracts, it’s still unlikely that they would be to fit a franchise tag salary on their books.
Anthony Spencer and Jason Hatcher are really the only candidates for the franchise tag, but Dallas has already use the designation on Spencer, which means that they would need to pay him a 20 percent increase and he’s coming off of a season-ending injury.
According to recent franchise tag projections, it would cost the Cowboys close to $15.12 million to franchise Spencer.
Hatcher, 31, is in a great position to secure a decent contract, which basically means that the Cowboys can look forward to the compensatory picks they’ll receive in 2015. Tagging Hatcher would likely cost Dallas close to $9.2 million fully guaranteed.
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