If Watkins goes to Free agency he will be overpaid by somebody. There are just very few good WRs on the market this year, and teams like the Bears desperately need WRs.
The idea of letting him try the market then matching what he gets is probably a non-starter.
The only thing that makes sense from a financial standpoint is to franchise him, then work out a 4 yr deal with a much lower cap hit than $16 million.
I don't get why we even consider using the franchise tag on Joyner. We want to keep him, he apparently wants to stay and he has proven his worth. Give him a solid Safety contract that will make him happy and save the franchise tag to leverage a better deal out of Watkins.
We have cap room, and we can always cut or renegotiate Quinn if we need more. Why not get Joyner (and AD for that matter) paid?
