The Chargers and Hunter Henry won’t have an extension in place by the afternoon deadline, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter) hears. There was strong mutual interest in a long term arrangement, but the current economic client scuttled any potential deal.

Henry has already signed his one-year, $11MM tender, so he’s locked in for the upcoming season. Back in April, Henry said he was “close” to inking an extension at some point, but a deal never came together. Now, he’s playing on a prove-it deal, and he mostly needs to prove that he can stay healthy.

The former second-rounder missed all of 2018 with a ACL tear and also missed time last year with a knee injury. At the same time, 2019 was a career year for Henry – he tallied 55 catches for 652 yards and five touchdowns in just 12 games.

It’s not an ideal outcome for Henry, but he does have the honor of being the first tight end to receive the franchise tag since 2014, when the Saints used it to cuff Jimmy Graham. For now, Henry says he’s focused on the present.

“To me, I have so much to prove,” Henry said recently. “Honestly, everybody knows my history of injuries. Unfortunate injuries that have happened in my career and I feel like that has held me back a little bit sometimes. I’m just eager to kinda get through something that I haven’t been able to do for a full season…I feel the best I’ve felt in probably a couple years, for sure. I’m excited.”

With only four days to go until the extension deadline for tagged players, tight end Hunter Henry doesn’t see himself signing a deal with the Chargers.

“I don’t think anything will get done, but we’ll see,” Henry told Gilbert Manzano of the OC Register.

[RELATED: Status Of Tagged Players Prior To July 15 Extension Deadline]

“I’m not worried about it,” Henry added. “I’m just going to go out there. I get a chance to play this year and do my thing this year. I’m pretty locked in on what I got ahead of me in the 2020 season. That’s what I’m locked in for, you know, I don’t like to look too far ahead.”

The Chargers slapped Henry with the franchise tag earlier this offseason, and the tight end subsequently signed the $11MM tender. Back in April, Henry said he had been “close” to inking an extension with the organization, but a deal never materialized.

The former second-rounder has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career, but he’s been productive when he’s seen the field. 2019 was a career year for Henry, as he hauled in 55 receptions for 652 yards and five scores in 12 games. As Manzano explains, the 25-year-old’s pseudo-one-year contract is effectively a “prove-it deal,” and Henry has the opportunity to earn a significant payday if he improves his numbers in 2020.

“To me, I have so much to prove,” Henry said. “Honestly, everybody knows my history of injuries. Unfortunate injuries that have happened in my career and I feel like that has held me back a little bit sometimes. I’m just eager to kinda get through something that I haven’t been able to do for a full season.

“I think that’s the biggest thing I’m focusing on. Just trying to stay healthy. I’ve just had some unfortunate injuries come my way. I feel the best I’ve felt in probably a couple years, for sure. I’m excited.”

Earlier this month, Hunter Henry signed his one-year franchise tender worth roughly $11MM. At one time this offseason, the tight end says that he was “close” with the Chargers on an extension that would have locked him in for longer (Twitter links via Daniel Popper of The Athletic). 

[RELATED: Chargers Would Have Been Happy With Tua Or Herbert At No. 6]

“We’re gonna try to extend and get something long term,” Henry said, before adding that he never considered a holdout.

Per the terms of the franchise tag, the two sides have until the July 15th deadline to hammer something out. If a deal doesn’t come together by that point, they’ll have to table negotiations until early 2021, after the season is through.

There’s clearly mutual interest in a long-term deal, but it won’t come cheap for the Bolts. This year, the Browns made Austin Hooper the highest-paid tight end in league history with a four-year, $42MM free agent deal. That’ll be a reference point for Henry and his reps, and the asking price will only increase once George Kittle inks his deal with the 49ers.

Henry missed all of 2018 with a ACL tear and also lost a quarter of the 2019 season with a knee injury. Despite that, GM Tom Telesco cuffed Henry with the franchise tag, making him the first tight end to receive the tag since Jimmy Graham way back in 2014.

In his 12-game campaign, Henry still managed career highs in catches (55) and yards (652). Both sides are incentivized to get an extension completed this year, but Henry would have an obscene amount of leverage in talks if he played out the year at 100% health and replicated that production.

The Chargers have a few high profile offensive players set to become free agents, including Philip Rivers, Hunter Henry, and Melvin Gordon. While they’ve already announced that they’ll be letting Rivers walk, they have no plans to let Henry follow him out the door. 

Henry “absolutely” will be getting the franchise tag, from what Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports hears. We heard back in January that the Chargers were considering the transition tag for the young tight end, but it sounds like they aren’t even willing to take that risk. The transition tag is a non-exclusive tag that gives the team the right to match any offer that the player gets in free agency. This is shaping up to be the most exciting tight end market in years, with plenty of big names getting new deals. Austin Hooper is about to enter unrestricted free agency and is expected to land a huge contract, while George Kittle is reportedly likely to get a record-breaking extension soon.

Kittle is widely expected to reset the market, and the last we heard was he’ll get at a minimum $13MM annually. The top of the tight end market right now is currently around $10MM, and it will be interesting to see what the slightly lower tier guys like Henry and Hooper get.

The Chargers are going to have a new quarterback under center in 2020, and quite possibly a rookie, so it makes sense why they’d want a reliable tight end. Henry showed a lot of promise his first two years in the league, then missed all of 2018 with a torn ACL. He missed four games this past season with a different knee injury, racking up a very solid 652 yards and four touchdowns in 12 contests. The Arkansas product is still only 25, and with less than three full seasons under his belt, he should still have plenty of room to grow. The Chargers have indicated they want to work out a long-term deal, and it would be a bit of a surprise if he doesn’t get one at some point after he’s tagged.

Chargers TE Hunter Henry is undeniably talented, but he has battled injuries over the past two seasons and therefore has some question marks surrounding him as he faces free agency for the first time. The 2016 second-round selection had a promising rookie campaign in which he caught eight TD passes, the second-highest total for a rookie TE this decade — behind only Rob Gronkowski‘s 10-TD 2010 effort — and he followed that up with a solid sophomore showing.

But in May 2018, he suffered a torn ACL that wiped out the entirety of the 2018 regular season. He returned for the Chargers’ divisional-round contest against the Patriots, but he played in just 20% of the team’s offensive snaps that game and did not catch a pass. Then, he sustained a tibia plateau fracture in Week 1 of the 2019 regular season and missed four games as a result.

Although they accumulated a lot of yards in 2019, the Bolts struggled to convert those yards into points, thanks in large part to shaky quarterback play. Henry, though, did his part, posting 652 receiving yards and five scores, and his yards-per-game output would have amounted to a very good 868 receiving yards if he had played all 16 games. And given the relative dearth of tight end talent in free agency and the draft, it would make sense for the Chargers to re-sign the Arkansas product (the only other tight end who could hit the open market and who could be considered on the same level as Henry is Atlanta’s Austin Hooper, and there’s no guarantee the Falcons let him walk).

But if they cannot agree to a new contract before free agency, LA is expected to use the transition tag on Henry, per Tony Pauline of Pro Football Network. The transition tag is less commonly used than the franchise tag, and while it gives the applying team the right to match any offer a player receives from another club, it does not result in any draft pick compensation should the applying team decline to match. However, no team would give up two first-round picks to sign Henry, so the transition tag makes sense in this case even though it’s only marginally less expensive than the franchise tag ($9.2MM vs. $11MM).

The tight end market is due for a reset, but in light of his health concerns and lack of a true breakout season, Henry may not be the player to reset it. If he elects for the security of a multiyear pact, he may be looking at something akin to the four-year, $29.8MM deal between Darren Waller and the Raiders. Or, if he is hit with the transition tag, he could play out the 2020 campaign on the tag, make a nice salary in the process, and look to jump back into the market in 2021.