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Paul Domowitch wrote a story yesterday about Joe Banner's take on the upcoming free agent market and buried 7 or 8 paragraphs down was a tidbit about DeSean Jackson. He said that Banner declined to discuss the status of any of the Eagles upcoming free agents, Jackson included, but he cite a source who said that the sides are not particularly close.
...league sources said Jackson's opinion of his worth continues to be night-and-day different from the Eagles'.
While Jackson has said he would be willing to get franchised, the Eagles aren't likely to do that. If he signed the franchise tender, they would have to pay him $9.5 million next year. That's an awful lot of money to give a guy who has just five touchdown catches in his last 22 games.
What the Eagles decide to do with Jackson should be a major, if not the major storyline of this offseason. It's pretty clear that Jackson is worth more than he's getting paid now, but obviously less than the "Larry Fitzgerald money" he is reported to be looking for. Where he's going to fall in the area between those two is the mystery, which won't be solved unless some other team sets the market with an offer.
But will it come to that? The Eagles have the option of the franchise tag to control Jackson's rights. And while they probably wouldn't want to pay the $9.5 mil it would take if he signed the tag, they also wouldn't want to let an asset walk away for nothing.