What's up everybody?

Welcome into the next Pat's podcast.

I'm Phil Perry.

The tag window is open, friends.

Yes, that's right.

The franchise tag window for teams to apply that tag to players opens as we're recording this right now on February 20th.

Now, teams have some time as to whether or not they decide to tag anyone at all.

It, of course, is not a requirement that any team, Patriots included, tag one of their top players to ensure that they keep them around at a relatively high salary.

But there are options for the Patriots to use the tag this year.

Realistic options, I would say, to ensure that they are able to keep in-house some of their most valuable players.

Now, it's been a while since the Patriots have had what would be deemed as one of their most

valuable players come up against a contract year or come up on free agency.

But that's exactly what's happening with Mike O' Wenu and Kyle Dugger. You could throw Josh Uche into that conversation as well, though I don't

think that's a realistic option for someone to be tagged. The reason I say it's been a while since

we've been in the spot, or at least it feels that way, is because the most realistic options, generally speaking, for the tag are players who are coming off their rookie deals and about to hit free agency.

Veteran players who are about to hit free agency tend to, because their salaries are higher than those that are coming off of rookie deals,

they tend to be extremely expensive on the franchise tag.

Here is the franchise tag rule in terms of how these things are figured out.

Franchise tag is, of course, a one-year tender of the average of the top five salaries

at the player's position over the last five years.

So we won't do that math here,

but essentially the idea is you're paid among the tops,

...