Patriots G Joe Thuney has signed his franchise tender, per his agent Mike McCartney.
Congrats to @JosephThuney signing his fully guaranteed, 1 year Franchise contract with the @Patriots
— Mike McCartney (@MikeMcCartney7) March 19, 2020
This locks Thuney in for one year and $14.781 million fully guaranteed in 2020. It also allows the Patriots to execute the trade portion of a sign-and-trade with Thuney.
The expectation had been that Thuney would test the open market and could end up pricing himself out of New England before the Patriots somewhat surprisingly placed the franchise tag on him. 20 teams were reportedly interested and Thuney had a great chance of resetting the market for guards.
Ian Rapoport mentions the possibility that New England tagged Thuney to explore a trade, which could net them more than the eventual third-round compensatory pick they could get if Thuney departed in free agency.
Thuney, 27, was drafted by the Patriots in the third round out of N.C. State in 2016. He signed a four-year, $3.538 million rookie deal and made a base salary of $720,000 for the 2019 season.
In 2019, Thuney started all 16 games for the Patriots. He was rated by Pro Football Focus as the No. 5 guard out of 80 qualifying players.
We have him included in our Top 100 – 2020 Free Agents list.
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