The Cleveland Browns utilized the franchise tag to keep tight end David Njoku on their roster for at least another season, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. Njoku gets a fully guaranteed one-year contract, reportedly worth about $10.834 million.
The market for Njoku was going to be good according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, which likely helped push the Browns to get Njoku locked up for this season or hopefully a longer term contract.
The team obviously wants to keep Njoku around for more than one year, so there’s a chance he doesn’t play on the tag. This news also could be a sign that the team could move on from Austin Hooper, as releasing him would save them $9.5 million in cap space, per Spotrac. They do like to play with multiple tight ends, but it appears they want Njoku to be the lead guy and they have depth at the position.