The New England Patriots will place the franchise tag on Matt Cassel. This is after the Pats went 10-5 with Cassel as a starter. This also gives the Pats 2 options: Keep him if Tom Brady's rehab doesn't go well, or Trade him. Between the 2 quarterbacks, they will take up $29 million of salary cap money. They will have $94 million left in cap space. This was broken by ESPN's Chris Mortensen.
This sounds like a fair deal for Cassell. $14 mill for one good year where he didn't quite make the playoffs. Better than Scott Mitchell got with the Lions I think! Of course, after watching the playoffs this weekend, I think the Patriots were better than at least 5 of the eight teams I saw.