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The deadline to use franchise tags will arrive on Wednesday afternoon and we’ve already seen six teams hand them out this week.

If there’s a seventh team, it’s not expected to be Texans cornerback A.J. Bouye. That’s been the feeling for some time as word in mid-February was that the Texans were leaning in the other direction and Bouye said last week that he didn’t believe that the team would be using the $14 million-plus tag to keep him off the open market.

Adam Schefter of ESPN reports Wednesday that nothing has changed and that the Texans will continue working on signing Bouye to a traditional extension rather than breaking out the tag.

That will likely be tough to get done before Bouye can start talking to other teams on March 7. Bouye has made a rapid rise to the top of the list of this year’s free agent cornerbacks and has little reason to sign a contract to stay in Houston without seeing what the larger market has to offer.