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Philadelphia Eagles Not Using Franchise Tag On Jeremy Maclin A Good Sign

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As the clock ticked down on 4:00 p.m. today, the Philadelphia Eagles stood pat with their franchise tag option and decided not to use it on pending free agent receiver Jeremy Maclin.

With this decision, the Eagles are now officially in crunch time, as they now have a little over a week to lock Maclin up with a long-term deal. Otherwise, Maclin is going to hit the free agent market as probably the top receiving option available, and who knows what astronomical deal he’ll get from some team.

But I’m not worried about that possibility, and you shouldn’t be either. I’m not worried because I believe firmly that the Eagles aren’t going to let Maclin go anywhere. The team wants him back, and Maclin reportedly wants to be back too. A new contract makes sense for both sides — the Eagles need Maclin’s 1,300-yard and 10-touchdown production on the field, and I can’t imagine Maclin wants to leave such a high-powered offense with the potential it has. Maclin has history and roots here, and is firmly entrenched as the No. 1 option. He won’t get that anywhere else.

Rather than freaking out, I take the Eagles not franchising Maclin as a strong sign that a long-term deal is close. If it wasn’t, I’m sure the Eagles would have tagged Maclin and bought another year of negotiating time. But there’s no reason to do that unless a deal is imminent, and both sides have been working on this deal for a while now. I’m sure Maclin wanted to see what happened with Dez Bryant and Demaryius Thomas before committing to numbers. But with Bryant and Thomas both getting franchised themselves, it kind of messed up Maclin’s strategy. It does help him in the end though — if either one of those guys hit the market, Maclin’s value would have been significantly less.

So now that that’s been answered for Maclin, I think a deal is going to be done sooner rather than later. I doubt this will be a last-minute thing the Eagles wrap up right before the start of free agency next week. The team certainly doesn’t want him to hit free agency, and even if he threatens it, I don’t get the feeling Maclin wants that either. Bank on him being in midnight green next season.

Doug Green is a Featured Writer for www.RantSports.com covering the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL.  Follow him on Twitter @DGreenNFL

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