
The Falcons recently elected to use the franchise tag on TE Kyle Pitts. Atlanta GM Ian Cunningham explained the decision, saying they don’t want a player like Pitts to reach the open market, and the tag gives them more time to evaluate Pitts.
“When you get in this role — I think I was hired January 29th and free agency comes up March 11th — there’s a lot of decisions that need to be made, and you don’t want a player of Kyle’s caliber to be able to go and hit the open market,” Cunningham said, via NFL.com. “So we use the mechanisms that we have in place, like a free agent tag, to allow ourselves a little bit more time to evaluate and get to know him, and the rest of the team. So being able to get him under the franchise tag, that lets you know how we feel about him and feel like he has a bright future in this league.”
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