The Patriots elected not to use the franchise tag

The deadline to do so was at 4 pm today. That time has come and gone without the Patriots putting their franchise tag to use.

Not that anyone expected them to.

The only two candidates the Patriots would've wanted to use their franchise tag on were Julian Edelman and Aqib Talib, their two biggest pending free-agents. While the Pats are certainly interested in at least retaining Talib, the franchise tag was not the best way to do so.

The number for cornerbacks was $11.8 million, which is nearly 100% of the cap space the team currently has to work with. Seeing as Brent Grimes just re-signed in Miami for $8 million a year, it makes even more sense for the Pats to not franchise Talib and try to work out a more cost saving deal that will keep both sides happy.

As for Julian Edelman, the wide receiver number is $12.1 million. Obviously extremely high to pay one of many slot receivers on the team (Remember, Welker got $6 million a year in Denver). Edelman was the team's best receiver last year, and the Pats would certainly like to keep him. Still, franchising him would effectively take them out of the running for Aqib Talib or any other free-agents services, and would make absolutely no sense considering if they wanted to extend him they could likely do so for around $5 million a year.

For those that don't know, the franchise tag is essentially a one year deal teams can designate for one of their pending free-agents. The dollar amount is calculated as the average of the top 5 salaries at the position for that year. The tag obviously nets a lot of guaranteed money to a player, but they have no control over it and most are looking for a longer deal.