Buffalo Bills left tackle Cordy Glenn, a pending unrestricted free agent, is a prime candidate for the franchise tag if the Bills and Glenn's agent can't come to terms on a long-term contract extension before the start of the new league year.
We still don't have official numbers from the NFL regarding 2016 franchise tag values, but the most recent estimation from ESPN has the tag value for offensive linemen at $13.7 million. Consider that your current best guess as to how much the Bills will be spending to retain Glenn if they can't re-sign him to a new, multi-year deal by the time early March rolls around.
Earlier this offseason, our own Tom Mitchell projected a new Glenn deal in the neighborhood of five years, $55 million with $37 million in total guarantees. That would obviously cost the Bills more long-term, but it would cut the 2016 salary cap figure by more than half, in addition to making the 26-year-old left tackle a franchise cornerstone for several years.
Glenn, who will turn 27 in September, was the Bills' second-round pick out of Georgia in the 2012 NFL Draft. He has been the Bills' starting left tackle ever since, starting 61 out of a possible 64 games thus far in his career (he missed three due to injury as a rookie).