Rick Spielman is the one lone voice remaining at GM from the largely unsuccessful "Triangle of Authority" regime. So far, he doesn't seem to be struggling with making some of the tougher personnel decisions on his own.
According to Tom Pelissero, Spielman said that the Vikings will not use the franchise tag for the upcoming season. He wouldn't comment on how that affects any specific players, but now we know that none of our potential unrestricted free agents will be getting tagged.
For those that need a refresher course in Franchise Tag 101, the franchise tag allows every NFL team to sign one player due to be an unrestricted free agent to a one-year contract. That contract's salary is the average of the top paid player at their respective position over the past five years. (That last point is actually a little different with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement--it used to be the average salary of the top five players at the player's position from that past season. The new rule actually slightly reduces the amount the team has to offer.) Each team can franchise only one player per year and teams can't use the franchise tag on a player more than once.
Last year, 13 NFL teams used the franchise tag. The Vikings were one of those teams, using the option on linebacker Chad Greenway, who of course has since received a nice hefty contract extension.