Franchise Tag Could Determine Which Los Angeles Rams Cornerback Stays

The Los Angeles Rams have been pretty outspoken on their desire to bring back both Trumaine Johnson and Janoris Jenkins this offseason. However, as ideal of a scenario as that would be, it is becoming less and less likely.

Janoris Jenkins went on a Twitter rant in which many suspected he was upset about the number that the Rams offered him and their hasn’t been a lot of noise on the Trumaine Johnson front.

According to Jason Cole of Bleacher Report, the Rams will use the franchise tag on either Jenkins or Johnson. It would be the first time that the Rams have used the tag since 2009 when they used it on safety O.J. Atogwe.

It’s looking more and more like the Rams are only going to be able to bring back one of their cornerbacks and it’s very likely that the franchise tag could decide which one that is. The franchise tag guarantees the team is able to keep at least one of the two and gives them time to work on a long-term deal.

Ideally the Rams would like to extend one and then franchise the other, and while they do have the cap space to do that, do they really want to put that much money into their secondary? Putting that much money into one position normally isn’t something that you want to do, especially with the other needs that the Rams have.

While the Rams may give the franchise tag to one of their cornerbacks, the other would probably test the free agent market to see what their value is. If that does happen, they’ll no doubt receive a ton of interest. There is a big need for cornerbacks around the league and it only takes one team to pull out the checkbook and put down an insane number.

If the Rams do intend to use the tag, they’ll have until Tuesday, March 1 and the tagged player would probably make somewhere around $14-million in 2016.