[albionmoonlight]

If Justin Smith is worth the franchise tag, then I wonder what that does to Charles Grant's value? I really wonder if the Saints are going to be able/willing to afford to keep him.

edit--In a weird way, teams overpaying to keep their own free agents off the market may have a snowball effect. If teams know that replacment players will not be out there, then they will be more likely to pay to keep their own players, which means that they will be even less free agents on the market, which makes it even more important to pay to keep the players that you have . . .