The Carolina Panthers have used the franchise tag designation only seven times in their franchise history, including four times in the past five years.

Tomorrow may make the eighth.

The Panthers are trying to work out a long-term contract deal with veteran kicker Graham Gano, who led the league in both field goal percentage and touchbacks in 2017, but if they are unable to come to terms with the 31-year old before tomorrow, they are expected to give Gano the franchise tag designation, which allows the team to negotiate until July 16th to secure a contract or else Gano will play under a one-year deal expected to be worth around $4.8m, the NFL’s Ian Rapoport reported Monday afternoon. The previous kicker to be assigned the franchise tag designation was Baltimore’s Justin Tucker, who went on to sign a four year, $16.8m deal before the deadline; Ryan Succop, another 31-year old kicker, recently signed the second-largest deal ever for a kicker: five-years and $20m with $7.25m guaranteed.

The deadline to get the deal done will be 4p Tuesday, so a long-term contract may be signed before the franchise tag is necessary; the team used the tag on defensive tackle Kawann Short during last year’s offseason before agreeing to a five-year extension and famously rescinded the tag from cornerback Josh Norman when contract negotiations broke off between Norman and then-general-manager Dave Gettleman.

Gano beat out seventh-round pick Harrison Butker in a training camp competition before the 2017 season; both kickers turned in excellent performances, with Gano being named to the Pro Bowl and Butker making over 90% of his field goal attempts.

He’s high up on the priority list,” Head Coach Ron Rivera said about Gano last week at the NFL Combine. “The tag and all that good stuff, that’s something that Marty’s going to have to deal with and take care of.”

 

Josh Klein on Twitter
Josh Klein
Editor-In-Chief at The Riot Report
Josh Klein is Editor-In-Chief of The Riot Report. His favorite Panther of all time is Chad Cota and he once AIM chatted with Kevin Greene. Follow Josh on Twitter @joshkleinrules.