Today is the deadline for all NFL teams to decide on whether or not they want to use their franchise tag on any of their players. One team who will not be using their tag is the New England Patriots.
According to Adam Schefter, the Patriots will not place the franchise tag on any of their pending free agents—barring any last minute changes.
This means that Trey Flowers, Trent Brown, and Stephen Gostkowski will all be able to test the market in free agency. Of course, New England can still end up bringing them back if it chooses to do so.
This comes as a bit surprising due to the fact that all of these guys play vital roles on the Patriots' current roster. All three of these guys have been present for two or more of the Patriots' Super Bowls.
Flowers, in particular, could be a wanted commodity in free agency by plenty of teams—especially with a lot of the big name guys being tagged by their respective teams.
The Patriots have shown they aren't keen on using their franchise tag with them using it just nine times since 2002. Three of those times it was used on a kicker—with one of them being Gostkowski.
I'm one of the last people that would question anything the Patriots do though. Everyone in the NFL seems to be playing checkers while they're always playing chess.
Their decision to not use their franchise tag seems like part of a plot to better their roster in a huge way.
Whether that involves keeping any of their impending free agents, that remains to be seen.
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