Trufant tagged, cap room increases

As I’m sure a lot of us expected, the Seahawks designated Marcus Trufant as their franchise player. For those not familiar with the term, the franchise tag allows a team to control a player when the two sides cannot work out a long term deal. If and when Trufant signs the tender, he will receive the average of the salaries of the top 5 highest paid cornerbacks in the league, which will be guaranteed. He also has the option of holding out for a long term contract. If he chooses not to sign the tender, which is highly unlikely, he will either be traded or sit out an entire season (a la Deion Branch). He received the non-exclusive version of the tag, which means other teams can negotiate with him and sign him to an offer sheet. The Seahawks could then either match the offer or receive two first-round draft picks as compensation.

In other news, the front office took advantage of the “likely-to-be-earned” incentive loophole in order to free up $7.4 million dollars in cap room. I’m going to be honest and admit that this confounds the crap out of me. For all intents and purposes, all you need to know is that we now have $7.4 million more in cap space. For a better explanation, check out this topic at the Seahawks.net forums. Hat tip to .NET user Gromit for the story.

~ by theseahawksblog on February 21, 2008.