in a tag and trade scenario it would be in judon's interest to sign the tag as long as the team he's going to isnt somewhere he doesnt want to play because the team that trades for him will likely be giving him a long-term deal
and teams always want edge rushers - look at what guys like frank clark and dee ford got on the trade market - he's gonna get similar money on the open market to those guys (probably more) so id be surprised if there wasnt significant interest if teams knew he was on the block
but as you say that's not the ravens MO - i think the only way this happens is if we tag Judon because we want to negotiate a long-term deal but its clear that we wont be able to come to terms and there's a threat judon holds out or something like that so we explore other options to get as much as we can
but im not worried about judon not signing the tag if there's a trade on the cards
Largely agree here.
I don't think the risk of him not signing the tag will be there, because ultimately, I think any team that's going to do that trade is already negotiating with his agent on a long term deal. Meaning it's just a question of when the Jets would lock up Judon long term, as opposed to if.
In my opinion, the risks associated with this sort of concept are too high in my opinion. For starters, if you're going to do it, there's two things that you have to be certain of:
1. That you already have a trade candidate in place before you apply the tag, and that you're extremely confident the trade will go through. OR...
2. You're content with him playing on the tag.
Because the reality is... the moment you slap the tag on him, that's $16-17M in cap space that can't be spent until the trade is completed. The trade could take days, or it could take weeks or months. The Chiefs traded Ford to the 49ers within two weeks, which was a pretty quick turnaround. Seattle had to carry Frank Clark on the tag for nearly two months before they dealt him to the Chiefs.
In my opinion, you can't tag Judon unless you're willing to pay him the tag to play here this year. If you are content with that, and want to explore trades, so be it. But this idea that you can tag him and then rescind the tag if you don't find a trade partner is a disaster decision in my opinion. Why? Because you're probably not pulling the tag until May. And in May, who's left to sign, unless you're just using the money to extend your own players.
There's a TON of risk here, because the tag is costly. It'll easily eat up 40% or more of the teams available cap space. Ultimately, if this gets done, it gets done early. Within the first week or so of FA.