Griffin won't balk at franchise tag

Tennessee Titans free agent safety Michael Griffin says he won’t be offended if the team places the franchise tag on him.

Griffin, a first-round pick in 2007, is believed to be potentially the leading candidate for the franchise tag if the Titans use it at all, and would make $6.2 million guaranteed for the 2012 season.

In fact, Griffin says his mother offered him some sound advice in regard to the possibility of the franchise tag being used on him.

“Would I be happy?” Griffin said to 102.5 The Game’s First Quarter, co-hosted by TitanInsider’s Darren McFarland and former Titans tackle Brad Hopkins. “Talking to my mother and coming from a great background, one of the best things she ever said was, ‘That’s a lot more money than you ever played for in any season you ever played. You can’t really be upset because you played for $3 million last year and you’d play for 6.2 million this year.’”

Griffin’s base salary was actually $3.31 million last season in the fifth and final year of his rookie deal with the Titans, and though there have been no real talks with Tennessee about an extension, the tag is an option.

“It’s a business. When you started to play this sport, it was a business first and playing was second,” Griffin said. “You have to honor your contract, and you’ve got play out your contract. That’s all you can really do. There’s not anything else you can do except to go out and do your job.”

Griffin said he has been working out with fellow Titans free agent defensive back Cortland Finnegan at D-I in Franklin and is leaving the business end of things to his agent, Ben Dogra.

“I just let him do his job,” Griffin said. “They have every opportunity to franchise me if they want to. If they choose not to, come March 13, I guess I’ll be on the open market. I’ll let my agent take care of that. I’m not going to get into trying to make a case for myself.”

The only troubling part of potentially heading into free agency is the uncertainty of where he will be playing in 2012.

“It’s almost like before I first got draft and not knowing where I was going to be,” he said. “I would get up every day and work out, but not knowing where I was headed or what’s next. In a couple of months I could be in a new city, learning my whereabouts and playing with a new group of guys I think that’s the most frustrating aspect of the free agency process.”