Quote:
Originally Posted by stevew
As soon as the tender is signed/accepted, it becomes guaranteed. Usually, though, the players don't sign it right away, and opt to wait until the last minute to report. And in that meantime, the team can opt to remove the designation. Corey Simon got his pulled at the last possible minute a few years back by the Eagles.
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This is correct. Fully guaranteed once it is signed. But they only sign if they intend to report, otherwise the player is in contract breach and subject to fines if they don't report. Walter Jones made a cool 14-15 million in two years and never even had to endure a training camp. Two years in a row he showed up late preseason and signed the tender, happy and ready to go. Of course, he showed up in very good shape.
And some guys are happy to sign, like Charles Woodson did with Oakland. They franchised him hoping to trade him, and he signed right away for a whopper franchise salary number. This put Oakland in a pickle because they weren't really budgeting him for that. He ended up playing the season for them anyways. So, while most don't like the tag, some players are actually ok with it. Also, as we have seen with Nate Clements and Shaun Alexander, they were ok with the tag too as long as the team agreed not to franchise them a second time.