The deadline to use the franchise tag or transition tag was 4 P.M. on Tuesday and that time has passed without the Buffalo Bills electing to use either on their pending free agents. The fact that the Buffalo Bills did not use the franchise tag this offseason is not surprising as Brandon Beane essentially said that last week during the NFL Combine.
The franchise tag has been something that Brandon Beane has not used yet during his tenure as general manager of the Buffalo Bills. However, this was the first offseason that there were players that would have warranted such a move with safety Jordan Poyer and middle linebacker Tremaine Edmunds set to be free agents.
What are the next steps for the Buffalo Bills?
While one decision has been made, there will be plenty of other work for the Buffalo Bills before the start of free agency next week. The team will have to get under the salary cap, which currently is about $17 million over according to Spotrac. The Bills do have some options to accomplish that and will likely look to restructure a number of contracts.
Once they have an idea of how much cap space they have, they will need to determine if there are any free agents from last year’s team they want to bring back. It would make sense that Poyer and Edmunds would be at the top of the list but there really doesn’t appear to be any movement on either front.
Other free agents they could consider re-signing include Devin Singletary, Shaq Lawson, and Jordan Phillips.
The Bills have less than a week to negotiate exclusively with these players as the negotiation period of free agency begins March 13th and will be roughly two days before the official start of the new league year and free agency on March 15th.