49ers Franchise Tag History

The deadline for NFL teams to designate their franchise tag players is today at 1 PM Pacific. The San Francisco 49ers are not expected to use the franchise tag on any of their pending free agents, nor should they when you consider cost, age, and/or relative talent.

Since its introduction in 1993, the 49ers have used the franchise tag designation just six times on five different players. The tag, which teams can only use once a year, binds a player to that team for an additional year. It guarantees the player a one-year contract for an amount no less than the average of the top five salaries at the player's position or 120 percent of the player's previous salary. Whichever is greater.

The following are the 49ers players that are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents on March 9.

WR Anquan Boldin
G Alex Boone
RB Reggie Bush
K Phil Dawson
NT Ian Williams

Below are this year's franchise tag numbers for each position, per ESPN.

	Francise Tag	Comparable Player	Transition Tag	Comparable Player
QB	$19.953M	Drew Brees ($20M)	$17.696M	Matthew Stafford ($17.7M)
RB	$11.789M	Jamaal Charles ($9.1M)	$9.647M	Arian Foster ($8.7M)
WR	$14.599M	Julio Jones ($14.3M)	$12.368M	Mike Wallace ($12.0M)
TE	$9.118M	Rob Gronkowski ($9.0M)	$7.714M	Charles Clay ($7.6M)
OL	$13.706M	Trent Williams ($13.2M)	$11.902M	Joe Thomas ($11.5M)
DE	$15.701M	J.J. Watt ($16.7M)	$12.734M	Charles Johnson ($12.7M)
DT	$13.651M	Gerald McCoy ($13.6M)	$10.875M	Geno Atkins ($10.7M)
LB	$14.129M	Clay Matthews ($13.2M)	$11.925M	Luke Kuechly ($12.4M)
CB	$13.952M	Richard Sherman ($14.0M)	$11.913M	Byron Maxwell ($10.5M)
S	$10.806M	Earl Thomas ($10.0M)	$9.116M	Jairus Byrd ($9.0M)
K/P	$4.572M	Stephen Gostkowski ($4.2M)	$4.123M	Britton Colquitt ($3.9M)

The following are the past players that the 49ers have used the franchise tag on, per Matt Maiocco of CSN Bay Area.

Steve Young (1993)
Terrell Owens (1999)
Julian Peterson (2004, 2005)
Aubrayo Franklin (2010)
Dashon Goldson (2012)