Removing the franchise tag from Julius Peppers is the best option.

[nagai]

There's a simple reason for why I think we can keep him this year even if he may hold out: it's worth the gamble.

At the end of the day, we were a 12-4 team with an unbeaten home record. If you look at our roster, there aren't any glaring holes at all. QB and D line are the only positions I'm a bit iffy with. Franchise QB's who play better than Jake are a very very rare commodity. I'm not hugging Jake's nuts, but how many QB's have both good intangibles and big numbers?

You can name the big name QB's in this league but how likely is it for those teams to let those guys go? Not very, and they do it would be at a steep price for us. In terms of Dline, we'll need to get rid of Pep and still trade for one of those top players seeing as all the top FA's are gone. We'll have to be trading away picks of course, which we won't have a lot of if we just let Pep walk.

So what if we let Pep walk? Who will we use that money on? Don't forget that next year may go uncapped too. I am much more comfortable with taking a risk on Pep than to let him walk without any sort of real compensation as the rewards of letting him walk are minimal.

[pantherclaw]

Letting Peppers walk would end up being the worst decision ever made by this franchise.

For a franchise with several bad decisions, that is saying something.