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Will Williams be tagged? Packers aren't saying
By Pete Dougherty
pdougher@greenbaypressgazette.com
If the Green Bay Packers are seriously considering using their franchise tag on Corey Williams, they haven't advised his representatives of that possibility with the Thursday deadline quickly approaching.
Williams is the Packers’ lone unrestricted free agent of note, and General Manager Ted Thompson has said he hasn’t ruled out designating Williams the franchise player. Doing so would in effect take Williams off the free-agent market but oblige the Packers to pay him $6.363 million this year.
Teams often warn a player or announce publicly they’re going to use the tag, so one interpretation is if Thompson hasn’t mentioned the possibility to Williams’ agents, then he’s not going to use it.
But Blake Baratz, one of Williams’ agents, said he’s not drawn that conclusion.
“Everyone knows it’s a possibility,” Baratz said. “We’re just going to have to wait the next couple days. They just hired a new cap guy (Russ Ball), so I know they’re waiting for him to get caught up with the structure of the team before they gave up the definitive answer one way or another. We agreed we’ll keep the lines of communication, and we’d like to be there long term. If that could happen, that would be ideal.”
Teams have until Thursday to use the franchise tag. If a club uses the non-exclusive franchise tag, it must offer the player a contract that averages the top-five-paid players at his position, and if another team signs him in free agency, the original club can match the offer or get two first-round draft picks as compensation. Such a move effectively would take Williams off the free-agent market, which opens Feb. 29.
If the Packers don’t tag Williams, it’s unlikely they’ll re-sign him.
Williams likely will attract such lucrative long-term offers in free agency that Thompson won’t be willing to pay because of the depth he has at defensive tackle with Ryan Pickett, Justin Harrell and Johnny Jolly. On the open market, Williams might be the most coveted defensive tackle if the Tennessee Titans use their franchise tag on Albert Haynesworth, which they’re expected to do.
The Packers could use the tag on Williams with the hopes of trading him so they’d at least get something in return for a quality player. The risk is that Williams would sign the tender immediately, which would prevent the Packers from rescinding it later in the offseason, and if the team couldn’t work out a trade, it would have to pay him the $6.363 million this year.
Baratz said neither he nor Mitch Frankel, Williams’ other agent, has spoken to anyone with the Packers in the last few days, though he expects to talk to a team representative either Wednesday or Thursday.
“The Packers have done a great job in the past monitoring the (salary) cap, and that’s a decision they have to make from within,” Baratz said. “It’s not a common scenario when one of your better players comes up in this position (as a free agent), and in the same boat that happens to be your deepest position.”
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