Both the Ravens and Chiefs made use of a rarely used tender today. Per ESPN’s Field Yates (on Twitter), free agent linebackers Justin Houston and Melvin Ingram were hit with UFA tenders by Baltimore and Kansas City, respectively.
This makes July 22 (or the first day of training camp, whichever is later) a relatively important date for the two veterans. If they sign with a new team before that date, then they’ll count toward the compensatory pick formula (benefiting their 2021 team). If they remain unsigned, then their 2021 squad will have exclusive negotiating rights, meaning the player will either return to the organization or sit unsigned.
Houston’s offer from Baltimore is worth 110% of his 2021 salary, which was $2.075MM. The veteran inked a one-year deal with the Ravens last offseason, and he ended up collecting 34 tackles and 4.5 sacks in 15 starts for his new team. Houston spent the first eight seasons of his career with the Chiefs, including a 2014 campaign where he compiled 22 sacks.
Per Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com, the Chiefs effectively offered Ingram a one-year deal worth $4.4MM. The linebacker was traded to Kansas City last November, and he saw time in nine games (six starts) down the stretch, collecting 15 tackles and one sack. The 33-year-old added another two sacks in three playoff games. The former first-round pick spent the first nine seasons of his career with the Chargers, collecting 49 sacks and three Pro Bowl appearances.
When was the last time this was even used? I can’t recall.
Me either. The fact that neither player had signed anywhere yet leads me to believe they might both sign the tenders.
I would’ve thought Ingram might be able to do better than that.
Or that teams were waiting until after the draft to see whether they were a position of need or not.
Giants used it in 2020
Who did the Giants use it on?
OLB/DE Markus Golden
Wow, no memory of that at all. Thanks.
Earliest I can remember was the Patriots using it on Blount in 2017.
I must not have been paying attention to the Ravens enough. I legit thought Houston has been retired for a couple years.
Will there be an article on Adrian Peterson’s previous arrest?
Make that plural; arrests!
Unless I’m misunderstanding here, what’s really the downside of a team using it (so why hasn’t it been used more often)?
Obviously there’s usually a reason that someone would be unsigned in May, but you either get a comp pick or exclusive negotiating rights with a player at what amounts to just a slight raise over their salary from the previous year.
downside I guess is that they accept and you get a guy fir a raise that you didn’t feel was worth resigning in the first place
This is kind of a garbage tag if I’m a player. Only a 10% raise to be bound to your old team as a vested veteran?
Houston is at an age where he may prefer to skip camp, rest up, and wait for an injury on a contender to hit or even just sign on as depth mid-season to a SB Favorite to get a ring. This takes that option away.
If the players agreed to it in the CBA, so be it, it’s just a weird tag and I’m shocked the players union agreed to it.