Steelers nose tackle Casey Hampton is a rare commodity -- a 3-4 line-and-toilet-clogger who is poised to hit the open market.
And he wants to have the ability to clog lines and/or toilets in another city.
Per Scott Brown of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Hampton says “it will be a problem” if the team uses the franchise tag to hold him in place.
“You say we’re family and you’ll take care of me, and I feel like that’s a slap in my face if you franchise me,” Hampton said after a Pro Bowl practice in Miami. “That’s not right. You don’t do business like that. I want to be treated fair, and I think franchising me is not fair.”
Take it easy, big fella. There’s nothing unfair about a team using the franchise tag. It happens all the time. Sure, the Steelers have opted at times not to use it, which likely has caused guys like Hampton to think they should get the same treatment. But that doesn’t make the team’s approach in any way unfair.
Besides, there’s no disconnect between regarding a guy as “family” and using a device contained in the CBA to permit a team to keep a family member from leaving the family. And the Steelers really do believe that Hampton is family. Why else would they have continued to stand by him through multiple attempts during his career to eat his way out of the league?
The reality is that Hampton, like Pats defensive tackle Vince Wilfork, wants to hit the market in the uncapped year. But what he wants and what he gets might be two different things.