The franchise tag deadline is set to be today at midnight, which means the Chicago Bears will have until the end of today to decide whether or not they are going to let Allen Robinson walk into free agency without a tag.
The Chicago Bears are trying to make a decision, but one of the bigger factors impacting this is that they do not have a definitive salary cap number. Once the Bears place the tag on Robinson, the move immediately impacts their salary cap. Working on a salary cap floor could be a different picture than what the salary cap is. Right now, they are working on the floor.
With that in mind, there is chatter amongst the NFL that the franchise tag deadline will be extended until the salary cap is resolved.
Per sources: NFL and NFLPA continue to work to finalize 2021 salary cap number. Union prefers to wait until TV deals are finalized. Due to this uncertainty, there are discussions about pushing back Tuesday’s deadline for teams to use franchise tag.
— Dan Graziano (@DanGrazianoESPN) March 8, 2021
The Bears are not the only team that is needing to know the exact cap number before making a big decision like this.
The issue is that no deadline has been reported, or granted yet. The argument is that when new TV deals come in, they will be about to set a higher cap, so the NFL may be waiting on that,.
When the Dallas Cowboys extended Dak Prescott, rumors swirled the move was because Jerry Jones expects an announcement soon, and he expects the cap to go up.
If this is true, it does help the Bears decision. The team getting an extra day or so to debate the decision also would help. Still, as of right this moment the Bears are working with a bit of gray area, which is why it may make sense that they wait until up to the deadline to make their final decision.
Will the TV deal be announced today? If it is, will the deadline be pushed back? If the deadline is pushed back, when will the new deadline be? We may not get a final resolution, but we should get answers soon.