Will Cleveland Browns franchise tag Wyatt Teller or Nick Chubb next year?

The Cleveland Browns can franchise tag one player in 2022 who would otherwise be an Unrestricted Free Agent. Nick Chubb and Wyatt Teller are the most likely candidates. 

The Cleveland Browns are faced with two Pro Bowl-caliber players about to go free agent in 2022 in Nick Chubb and Wyatt Teller, so will they use the franchise tag to retain one of them? If so, since they only have one tag per year, which player should it be?

What the fans want to have happen is for the player to say is, “I feel so loved by the fans in Cleveland that I will play the rest of my career for the Browns for a token raise above the NFL minimum.”

Unfortunately, this is pro football, and even if the players would do it, the players’ wives and families will not allow them. So, for example, I couldn’t respect Joe Schobert more even though he is gone, and I hope you do too. It’s very understandable that the Browns have moved towards a different brand of defense emphasizing hybrid linebackers that are more like strong safeties. Schobert will always be an unofficial member of the Dawg Pound unless his team plays the Browns.

The franchise tag, just to review, is a legal power that each team has to force one player per year to accept a one-year contract at a pre-determined rate, as agreed to by the NFL owners and NFL Players Association (NFLPA) in their Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). The salary is the average of the top five salaries at the position.

Players tend to hate being “tagged,” but it’s historically proven to be a rather decent compensation. Ask Kirk Cousins and Dak Prescott how it worked out.

Chubb and Teller would seem to be the biggest stars who are eligible to be unrestricted free agents next season, and who are worth a lot of money. For completeness, we could also include underrated David Njoku, who has steadily improved during his time in Cleveland but also suffered more than his share of injuries

Estimated numbers are provided courtesy of Overthecap.com. They are not official, just informed estimates based on projected revenues for the NFL, which gets plugged into a formula described in the CBA.

2022 franchise tag Costs, Estimated by Overthecap.com

Wyatt Teller: OL  $16,536,000

Nick Chubb: RB  $12,516,000

David Njoku: TE  $10,944,000

The offensive linemen are grouped together into a single category, even though the tackles are the ones that get distinctly higher pay than either guards or centers. For whatever reason, they have always done it that way.

Bottom line, Wyatt Teller can be kept on the Browns through 2022 for $16.5 million.

Nick Chubb, on the other hand, can be kept by the club for one year for a relatively low $12.5 million.

The entire amount of the franchise tag gets charged to the 2022 budget.

If the Browns avoid the need for the franchise tag if they can agree on a multi-year deal. They usually get to defer a portion of the first-year salary to years two, three, and four because of the way bonus money is charged to the salary cap.

That may be considered an advantage if they are trying to overspend in 2022 while planning to rebuild down the road. However, if their plan is to be good year in and year out, then they might as well take its medicine upfront anyway. When the team decides to defer payments to the future, they are implicitly admitting they are planning to have a rebuilding year at some point in the future.

We can probably rule out Njoku as a franchise tag target despite his high level of play and the relatively low cost of the franchise tag at the tight end position. Njoku is a good kid from a great family (what other NFL player has a brother who is a brain surgeon; come on now?), but for whatever reason past general managers got in the habit of calling him out in the press, which created a contentious situation.

Njoku has become an outstanding blocker and has always been an athletic pass catcher. The tight ends do not get nearly as much credit as wide receivers in the Browns offense, however. Hopefully, all that gets worked out this season.

Realistically, however, the Browns will probably not stand in his way if he is determined to leave at the end of this season. They could earn a compensatory draft pick if they let him go while refraining from signing additional free agents.

Wyatt Teller was a masterful acquisition by John Dorsey in 2019. The Browns gave up a fifth and sixth-round pick in 2020 and received Teller and a 2021 seventh-round pick.

Truthfully, I really don’t understand what happens when he is on the field in a run-blocking situation. He seems to make short little motions with his forearms, so quick that you can hardly see them, and defensive linemen fall backward on their butts.

He doesn’t look like he does much, but the result is a pancaked defender. Larry Allen of the Cowboys used to have the same magical effect. He would just stand his ground and let the defenders would run into him and he would just jostle them rather than blast them, and they would wind up on the ground flat on their backs. Just put them on a plate and serve them at the International House of Pancakes.

For Teller to be franchise tagged, his one-year salary has to be moved up to the level of a Top Five NFL tackle. Because he is a guard, even though he is very good, he is not a good value if he is paid on the tackles’ pay scale. That is, if you define value as the player’s contribution to the team divided by the cost (salary), the very high price of the offensive line tag assures that Teller would be a very good player but not a great value.

As for Chubb, he may be the most incredible running back we have seen this side of Jim Brown, following in the footsteps of Leroy Kelly, Greg Pruitt, Eric Metcalf, Earnest Byner, Kevin Mack, and Jamal Lewis. Chubb does it between the tackles, but he can catch the ball on the outside, also. We just have not seen him use that talent yet. What can he not do? Yet the pay scale is much lower for running backs than offensive linemen. He provides much greater value.

The Browns don’t have to hurry to sign anyone. No franchise tag decision needs to be made until next offseason. It looks like the Browns have leverage because they can retain one player for certain. Looking at it coldly, if there is an injury, the players have a lot more to lose by not having a multi-year contract with at least some guaranteed money.

However, the longer it goes, the more the leverage shifts to the player unless the player gets injured. That is what happened to Olivier Vernon, who was hoping to test the free-agent market this offseason but suffered a career-threatening Achilles injury in the last game of the season.

His value has unfortunately plummeted to zero until such time as he can demonstrate that he has recovered from the surgery. But appearances may be deceiving. Would they really want to pay Wyatt at 165 percent of the rate of Joel Bitonio? What kind of value proposition is that?

It makes much better sense to try to sign the offensive lineman to a long-term deal and risk losing him, especially if you are willing to give him a major pay raise compared to the veteran Bitonio. Conversely, halfback Chubb is a bargain at the franchise tag rate.

A lot depends on how good center/guard Nick Harris is, plus fourth-round draft pick James Hudson, a tackle out of Cincinnati. Also, guard Drew Forbes may resume his development after a year off due to opting out due to Covid-19.

If the offensive line prospects are looking good, the team may feel better about investing in Chubb. If they flop, on the other hand, they may have to pull out the stops to retain Teller.

Chances are, if the Browns need to use the franchise tag next season, the best guess here is that it will be for Nick Chubb.