What Are The New England Patriots Up To?

You are pretty close. Essentially, putting the franchise tag on Cassel takes him off the free agent market. Cassel would be entering free agency this year - officially an unrestricted free agent on February 27. This means that he can go to any team that he wants to once he becomes a free agent. The Patriots have two options, lose him to free agency or tag him as a franchise player. If he enters free agency, the Patriots lose a bargaining chip and will not be able to trade him. If he is tagged as a franchise player, he is off the free agent market. This gives them time to decide what they want to do. Theoretically, they could work a trade before he enters free agency, but this is a risky thing to rush into. Generally, you will only give the franchise tag to a player that you intend to keep. However, with Brady trying to recover from knee surgery, it is likely that they will want to keep Cassel until they are sure of Brady's disposition. The franchise tag can only be applied to one player per year, so it is not readily given. As well, the team would then have to pay the franchise player the average of the top-five salaries of players in his position. This would be about $14 million for Cassel. Due to the salary cap, this could present problems. However, the salary cap is being increased this year, so the Patriots shouldn't have any problem handling it. The most recent report I have heard indicates that they have not yet decided. Officially, they can only tag a player between Feb. 5 and Feb. 19, this year. As such, nothing has yet been done. The NFL draft is not until April, so losing Cassel to free agency prior to that date would be just plain dumb...and the Patriots are NOT dumb. :) Belichick is a freaking genius and Bob Kraft supports him in most (if not ALL) of his decisions.