It won't be officially official until Monday afternoon at the 2 p.m. deadline, but all reports indicate the Dallas Cowboys will place the franchise tag on wide receiver Dez Bryant to keep him from hitting free agency.
The move, of course, means the Cowboys will have to pay Bryant a guaranteed average of the top five wide receiver salaries in the NFL, which should be somewhere around $13-14 million, which will be a pretty nice payday for Bryant.
But Bryant won't be happy, as he's indicated on several occasions. He wants a long-term deal, and has played well enough to deserve one. Of course, there are some underlying off-field issues that have come up, and the Cowboys seem a bit concerned with the thought of giving him a long-term deal.
If Bryant continues his outrageous level of play, he might earn a long-term deal, or he could be franchised one more time in 2016, but that would surely mean the end of his time in Dallas if the Cowboys spurn him twice.
And who knows, just because the Cowboys franchise Dez Monday doesn't mean he'll be playing under the franchise tag in 2015. The team would still have until mid-July to work out a long-term deal with Bryant, which is something the Cowboys have done before with players they've put the franchise tag on.
