Giants To Franchise Tag Jason Pierre-Paul

The Giants will apply the non-exclusive franchise tag to Jason Pierre-Paul, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk (on Twitter). Unless the two sides work out a new deal between now and July, JPP will play out 2017 on a one-year, $16.955MM contract. The transaction was not formally processed before the end of business on Monday, but the Giants have informed him of their decision. Jason Pierre-Paul

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The G-Men will work “aggressively” to lock Pierre-Paul up beyond 2017, Josina Anderson of ESPN.com (on Twitter) hears. The Giants have about $31.5MM in cap space before factoring in the tag and they can preserve a good chunk of that by smoothing out JPP’s cap hit on a multi-year deal. Ideally, the Giants would like to retain their defensive core, which means brand new deals for JPP and defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins.

Had JPP reached the open market, he would have stood as one of the best free agent edge defenders in this year’s class. Now that he and Jones have been franchise tagged and Melvin Ingram probably isn’t far behind, Packers standout Nick Perry probably has to be considered the best of the bunch. Perry, 27 in April, will be heavily targeted by 3-4 teams looking to boost their pass rush.

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