Melvin Ingram designated franchise player for Los Angeles Chargers
The Los Angeles Chargers have placed the franchise tag on edge defender Melvin Ingram, removing one of the top free agents from the market…
NFL teams are getting to work before the start of the Scouting Combine this week, and are handing out franchise tags left and right. The Los Angeles Chargers have designated Melvin Ingram their franchise player, removing one of the most coveted potential unrestricted free agents from the market.
The Chargers have officially placed the franchise tag on Melvin Ingram.
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) February 28, 2017
After a dreadful start to his career in which he racked up just six sacks in 12 starts, Ingram has started all 16 games in each of the past two seasons and has become one of the league’s premiere edge defenders.
He has 18.5 sacks and seven forced fumbles over the course of the past two years, and has become a player that teams now loathe to have to gameplan for.
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The Chargers designate Ingram as an outside linebacker, so the official franchise tag number for that position is $14.129 million, which is fully guaranteed and counts against the Chargers’ cap. Moving to their new city, the Chargers aren’t overly cap rich. They will have to make some moves to get into better shape, as Ingram’s cap hit on the tag will put them at just over $7 million in remaining cap space.
Just to begin speculating on what they might do, D.J. Fluker has the highest cap hit with no repercussions in terms of dead money, and releasing him would save the club $8.821 million.
It would have certainly been exciting to see what Ingram could have gotten on the open market, but the Chargers would obviously love to give him a new deal. They had better be willing to pay market price, though, and pass rushers of his caliber are going for upwards of $16-20 million per season.
This is obviously the first step toward ensuring that he remains a member of the Chargers as long as possible.