The NFL on Tuesday at 1:00pm Pacific Time officially opened the window for teams to use a franchise tag for the 2025 season.
It’s unlikely we’ll see the San Francisco 49ers take the franchise tag route with any of their free agents this offseason.
According to Over the Cap, tags are calculated by “adding the respective tag numbers, divided by the sum of the salary caps from the previous five seasons, and finally multiplied by the current season’s salary cap.” Franchise tags use the top five salaries at the given position. Transition tags use the top 10 salaries.
For the 49ers, three players stick out as potential tag candidates: cornerback Charvarius Ward, safety Talanoa Hufanga and linebacker Dre Greenlaw.
We can rule Greenlaw out immediately because the linebacker tag also includes outside linebackers, so the franchise tag number is an absurd $27,050,000. That’s more than Greenlaw has made in his entire career.
Ward’s franchise tag would be worth $20,357,000, and Hufanga’s would sit at $19,626,000.
For Ward, his motivation to not play in San Francisco anymore goes beyond football. Frankly, tagging him would be a pretty awful move on the 49ers’ part given what Ward had to say about not wanting to be back in the Bay Area.
Hufanga hasn’t made clear his desire to leave, but keeping him at nearly $20 million is well beyond what the 49ers can or should pay for a safety with his injury history. There’s a real chance Hufanga stays in San Francisco, but it would be because his market isn’t robust and he’s affordable.
The 49ers haven’t used a franchise tag since placing one on kicker Robbie Gould in 2019. That doesn’t appear in line to change in 2025.
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