< Back to front page Text size – +

RFA tenders for 2010

Print | Comments () Posted by Albert Breer February 10, 2010 12:15 PM

Tweet
E-mail

We've apprised you guys of the mess that's ahead here for all the fourth- and fifth-year guys who will be restricted free agents in 2010.

Normally, those are the players that cash in big-time on the free-agent market, and so there are sure to be some ruffled feathers with the younger set looking to secure their futures.

"A contract is a contract, it is what it is," Chargers receiver Vincent Jackson told me last week, as he's one of 11 Chargers in this situation. "But when it comes down to it, you think you put in the work for the minimum for five years, you play at a high level for a great team that’s consistently making the playoffs, and you’d hope people would see it that way."

A lot of people won't, though, and so there are a ton of guys who will play under one-year tenders, with the league's future so uncertain and a lockout looming. Last week, at the NFLPA's Come-to-Jesus press conference, the union released the RFA tenders.

Teams must tender restricted free agents by March 4, the final day of the league year and the afternoon before the beginning of free agency. In the past, RFAs had been free to seek offer sheets with other teams through the Friday before the draft. Not sure if that date gets pushed up now that the draft is starting on a Thursday, rather than a Saturday, but the other rules -- The original team has seven days to match the signing team's offer, or simply accept the compensation attached to the tender -- remain intact.

The Patriots have two players in the fourth-/fifth-year boat: Logan Mankins and Stephen Gostkowski. Follow the jump to see the tender numbers ...

Four accrued seasons -- 2006 Draft Class
Original draft pick compensation -- $1,176,000
2nd-round tender -- $1,759,000
1st-round tender -- $2,521,000
1st- and 3rd-round tender -- $3,168,000

Five accrued seasons -- 2005 Draft Class
Original pick compensation -- $1,226,000
2nd-round tender -- $1,809,000
1st-round tender -- $2,621,000
1st- and 3rd-round tender -- $3,268,000

An accrued season, by the way, is "Six or more regular-season games on a club’s active/inactive, reserved-injured or physically unable to perform lists."

Mankins will likely get the first- and third-round tender, though there is an interesting dynamic at work here. The original draft-pick compensation tender is $1.226 million, and the Patriots could tender him there.

Now, he'd get more than that number, because it's less than his 2009 salary. When that's the case, the figure becomes 110 percent of that salary, which in Mankins' case was $1.4 million, meaning the Patriots have the option to tender him at $1.54 million and set compensation at the first-round level. Colts CB Marlin Jackson, coming off a torn ACL and another '05 first-rounder, is in a similar spot -- He can be tendered at $2.06 million with first-round compensation set.

Gostkowski's situation will be interesting too. Could they get away with tendering him at the second-round level? Probably. But remember, such penny-pinching is what cost the Dolphins Wes Welker three years ago.

Confused? Don't blame you, and there's a lot more of this coming over the next few weeks.