Patriots place transition tag on safety Kyle Dugger

The New England Patriots are placing the transition tag on safety Kyle Dugger, the team announced Tuesday. Dugger’s transition tag will be worth $13.81 million, per reports.

Patriots utilize transition tag to extend their rights to safety Kyle Dugger: https://t.co/NnnaLqjjfF pic.twitter.com/WHRdQ5ZE2M

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) March 5, 2024

The transition tag is similar to the franchise tag in that it’s a one-year tender offer and gives a team the right of first refusal to match any offers the tagged player receives. Where it differs is the player receives the average of the top 10 salaries at his position as opposed to the top five, and the tagging team doesn’t receive draft compensation if they elect not to match any other offers.

“Kyle is a talented player with a strong work ethic who has improved every year and been extremely productive since joining our team in 2020,” Patriots coach Jerod Mayo said. “We value players with high character and chose to use the transition designation to give both sides more time to try to reach a long-term agreement, which is our goal with Kyle.”

The Patriots selected Dugger with the No. 37 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Since then he’s established himself as a key part of New England’s defense.

Dugger, 27, is coming off one of the best years of his career. He started all 17 games, intercepted two passes, defended seven, logged a career-high 109 tackles and tallied 1 1/2 sacks in 2023.

The transition tag had only been used five times in the last 15 years before this move. In three of those scenarios, a competing offer was made and that offer was matched twice. So this is a rarely-used transaction and one the Pats opted for amid struggles in agreeing with Dugger about his long-term compensation.

So now the Pats and Dugger can continue working toward a long-term agreement while also using this as a chance for Dugger to see what else is out there for him, then giving the Pats a chance to match it.

This also means the Patriots can’t use the franchise tag on offensive lineman Mike Onwenu since they can only apply a tag to one player each year. So unless the Patriots agree to a last-minute deal with Onwenu in the coming days, which seems unlikely, Onwenu will be able to negotiate with other teams starting Monday.

He’s widely seen as the best pending free-agent offensive lineman, though there’s a wrinkle in negotiations for him — Onwenu fired his agent and plans to represent himself in negotiations with teams.

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(Photo: Winslow Townson / Getty Images)