Monday Recap: Welker and Bowe Tagged; Jackson and Flynn to Become Free Agents

In what we would call a "big" news day during the NFL offseason, a few big-name players received the franchise tag from their teams—a few others will instead head out into free agency.

A record 21 players were tagged during the franchise tag period, and that is largely due to the fact that the cost to tag a player this offseason was a good bit cheaper than previous years.

Here is a short recap of a few of the more notable players to either be franchise tagged or not on Monday.

Who's staying?

Two of the better players to be tagged yesterday were New England Patriots receiver Wes Welker and Kansas City Chiefs receiver Dwayne Bowe.

Both receivers are the number one targets in their respective offenses, so it really came as no surprise that they received their tags and I agreed with both decisions.

In fact, I really liked the Patriots tagging Welker on Monday.

He led the NFL in receptions last season with 122, which was 22 more than any other receiver in the league.

It was a smart move for the ever-logical Patriots to make sure that they didn't have to get into a bidding war with others team for him.

I can also see this as the Patriots' way of building Welker's confidence after he dropped a very catchable ball late in this year's Super Bowl. 

A lot of kickers were tagged by their teams during the franchise tag period. In fact,five kickers and one punter received the tag.

In a way, it is ironic that six kickers were the only players on their team that received the tag of franchise players, but the name shouldn't be taken too literally.

It was just more of a bargain this year to franchise kickers, so teams capitalized on that.

Who's going?

Two big players that didn't receive the franchise tag were San Diego Chargers Receiver Vincent Jackson and Green Bay Packers backup QB Matt Flynn.

Neither one was really expected to receive the tag, but it wouldn't have been too far out if either had.

Chargers GM AJ Smith had publicly said that the team wasn't going to franchise Vincent Jackson, so like I said it wasn't really a shocker that they didn't.

Jackson will be testing the free-agent market this offseason, and he is likely to field offers from teams like the Cleveland Browns, the Chicago Bears, the Patriots, and the St. Louis Rams. 

My prediction is that Jackson will end up going to the Bears.

With a healthy Jay Cutler and Matt Forte, a good defense, and an opening at the No. 1 receiver spot, I don't see why he wouldn't want to go to Chicago.

The Bears were 7-3 last year with Cutler as the starter (even with no receiving corps to speak of), but when he was injured and Matt Forte went down two weeks later, the Bears fell apart and ended up missing the playoffs. Vincent Jackson turns the Bears into a contender.

Matt Flynn is a little tougher to predict.

The Packers could have franchised Flynn with the intention of trading him away, but if Green Bay wasn't able to find a trading partner it would have been stuck with a backup quarterback who made more money than their starting quarterback.

In the end they decided that it wasn't worth the risk: Smart move on their part.

If Peyton Manning wasn't likely to be a free agent this offseason, then I would say that Flynn would go to the Dolphins.

Miami hired Green Bay's offensive coordinator Joe Philbin this offseason as their head coach, so there is an obvious connection between Philbin and Flynn.

However, Manning probably is going to be available, so I expect that he will go to the Dolphins—leaving Flynn to find another team.

To me, the next logical spot for Flynn is the Washington Redskins.

Washington's owner Dan Snyder will be upset that he missed out on Manning, so he will take the next best available quarterback and will be willing to pay big bucks for him—and that is Flynn.

I know that there are a lot of people who are saying that Flynn is unproven and doesn't deserve to be paid like a franchise quarterback after just a few games.

Well, my counter to that is that he looked amazing in those few games that he did play.

I would much rather invest in a player that I have seen be successful in the NFL in the few games that he has played instead of a rookie who has yet to play. 

And don't give me that nonsense that he only threw for six touchdowns last season because it was against a bad defense.

I don't care if it was against the Lions: Matt Flynn threw for more touchdowns than any other Green Bay Packer in the history of the organization.

That's saying something, and to deny that is foolish.

Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to read my post. Please leave your thoughts.

Paul Smythe runs multiple football websites. His newest one is devoted entirely to the NFL, and can be found here: From The Pocket.