Although no team has used it yet, the franchise label window opened a week ago and runs until March 9th. In general, there are a number of labeling activities as the deadline approaches.
The Pittsburgh Steelers scored outfielder Bud Dupree on the 2020 deadline, hoping to reach a long-term deal. As we know, this has not happened and, in all likelihood, Dupree will be with another team in 2021.
The franchise label figures for each position are based on the 2021 salary cap, and the final number is still unknown. Teams are being told it will not fall below $ 180 million – far from the $ 198.2 limit by 2020 – so they are really only estimating at the moment, which is why some teams are reluctant to use the label.
Per OverTheCap, the value of the backbacker is estimated to be $ 15.65 million and the value of the wide receiver $ 16.43 million. If Pittsburgh marks Dupree for a second straight season, his figure will be considerably higher than the one-year project offer.
Clubs must pay 120% of the player’s previous salary to tag a player for two consecutive years. Based on his $ 15.8 million salary in 2020, Dupree would have paid $ 18.96 million for a season.
Many clubs, including the Steelers, are in the red. They will fight until the last minute to get compatibility with the maximum limit until the beginning of the new year of the league on March 17. This does not mean that general manager Kevin Colbert and his staff willingly or unwillingly distributed the money to the left and right. Good teams will always face this because they pay for their top talents and often try to retain them. No one could have predicted that a global pandemic would send the lid spiraling.
So, of the 25 free agents waiting in Pittsburgh, who is most likely to be called a franchise label? There is no doubt that Dupree and wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster are priority free agents that the Steelers would keep if they could.
If he could are the keywords here – because they seem to be you can not. “I’d say it’s doubtful we can use a label,” Colbert said in a recent call to the Pittsburgh press.
“Again, when we say we don’t know what the cover is, what we are trying to do is prepare for the worst situation. At this time, we know that the ceiling cannot fall below $ 175 million based on the CBA. So we will always work in this mentality. We will play different scenarios and develop different scenarios where we are dealing. ”