Window for Bears to tag CB Jaylon Johnson opens Tuesday
Chicago Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson celebrates his touchdown during the second half against the Bengals in 2021.
AP Photos
The Bears have vowed to keep cornerback Jaylon Johnson around.
They’ll be able to, starting Tuesday. That’s when the two-week window opens for NFL teams to issue the franchise and transition tag to, at the least, lock players into a one-year deal for 2024.
The Bears are expected to give Johnson the franchise tag if they can’t work out a contract extension.
“Jaylon’s not going to go anywhere,” general manager Ryan Poles vowed in January.
Most teams use the tags as a starting point to negotiate a long-term deal — a scenario that interests both Johnson and the Bears — by a mid-July deadline.
That might not prove easy. When the two sides couldn’t agree on an extension last year, Johnson surprised the Bears by asking for a trade the night before the trade deadline. Poles sought a late first- or early second-round pick in return, and couldn’t get it.
Johnson went on to earn a Pro Bowl berth and second-team All-Pro honors.
“Definitely, the price went up,” Johnson, who's said he wants to stay in Chicago but at the right price, told the Sun-Times at the Pro Bowl Games this month.
Johnson told ESPN Radio in January he wants to be the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback; the Packers’ Jaire Alexander makes $21 million per year.
Each NFL team can give the franchise tag — whose price is the average of the top five salaries at their position — to one player whose contract would otherwise expire. The transition tag is cheaper but allows players to negotiate with other teams and give his original team the right of first refusal.
If Johnson gets the franchise tag, his 2024 contract is projected to be about $18.4 million.
Players vastly prefer long-term deals to tags. Johnson told the Sun-Times this month he didn’t know whether he’d skip the Bears’ offseason program if he failed to get an extension.