In the immediate aftermath of Josh McDaniels's ungainly exit from the St. Louis Rams it seemed, if you knew your NFL rumors, like Brandon Lloyd was going to be a New England Patriot almost by default—McDaniels seemed almost to be his Svengali, and Lloyd had nothing holding him in St. Louis except a few games in which he tried to establish a rhythm with—well, A.J. Feeley and Kellen Clemens, mostly. Turf Show Times has another suggestion entirely: Use the much-maligned franchise tag on him.
In case the franchise tag confuses you as much as it does me: Teams get one a year, which allows them to offer, in the "exclusive" variety, a "franchise player"—it's odd to see that kind of thing turn into an actuarial designation, and not a sportswriting one—a one-year deal worth the result of an apparently complicated formula, as of last year's new CBA.
For wide receivers that's $9.4 million, significantly less than it was last year. It's a little absurd to think of Brandon Lloyd as Franchise Player of the St. Louis Rams, but that's contract negotiations will make absurdities of even the most venerable language.