Wednesday is the first day NFL teams can designate any of their pending free agents with either franchise or transition tags so let’s get this out of the way quickly: Neither wide receiver Kenny Stills nor defensive end Andre Branch are candidates to get the franchise tag.
No disrespect, but that tag and the mega-money that it carries is typically reserved for players (and some kickers) of a certain orbit. Von Miller was tagged by Denver two years ago while the New York Giants tagged Jason Pierre-Paul, thinking he still had all his fingers. Eric Berry has been tagged.