NFL Sources: Carolina Panthers will not place franchise tag on Julius Peppers
February 23rd, 2010 | by James R Dator |
According to sources inside the NFL the Panthers will hold a press conference at 2 PM to discuss early moves by the team, including the announcement that the team will not use a franchise tag on Julius Peppers.
This isn’t wholly a surprise (it was predicted on this blog a few days ago) but it is disheartening that the Panthers could not get any compensation in return for their Pro Bowl DE. Ultimately, the organization had almost no leverage in getting a decent trade. When Peppers announced to the media that a long term deal was ‘off the table’ it put the rest of the NFL on notice; the relationship between the team and Peppers was beyond repair. From here all it required was for teams to wait out this time and offer him a deal in free agency.
While it remains to be seen what kind of contract Julius Peppers can expect on the open market, I think he’ll find that the offers coming in are vastly inferior to the kind of contract extensions the Panthers have offered him over the years. Peppers’ camp is expecting an offer rivialing Albert Haynesworth’s $100 million deal… but according to Peter King of Sports Illustrated via his Twitter:
“Had an NFL exec tell me this weekend he thought Peppers would be lucky to get $10m a year in this climate.”
This would roughly represent a $50-60 million contract, a far cry from what he expects.
No doubt there is a certain sadness across the Carolina Panther landscape today. Peppers has been a great DE and a fan favorite ever since his selection in the 2002 draft. Unfortunately though due to the lack of experience on the part of Carl Carey (Peppers’ agent) and a perceived lack of interest from the Panthers (according to Peppers) this relationship has been strained beyond repair.
It’s time for Panthers’ fans to look forward to the future as defensive coordinator Ron Meeks will continue his evolution of the defense into a fast, lean defense with an emphasis on speed over power. The selection of Everette Brown in the 2009 draft highlighted this desire, and I expect we’ll see this evolution continue.
