Several sources are reporting that the Lions are working on a multi-year contract with veteran K Jason Hanson.

General manager Martin Mayhew said Thursday if the two sides were unable to come to an agreement by the Feb. 19 deadline for franchise and transition tags, the Lions would designate Hanson as the team’s franchise player.

“(We) hope we get something done — frequently a deadline kind of moves things along and the franchise deadline is coming up next week,” Mayhew said, accoring to a blog post on detroitlions.com. “I think we’ll get something done prior to that. If we don’t then we’ll franchise Jason.”

Mayhew went on to say the Lions would use the franchise tag rather than the transition tag on Hanson.

“I’d rather pay a little bit more (by franchising him instead of transitioning him) and know that we have him,” Mayhew said. “You look at where we are in terms of the contract; it’s not that much difference from his average and the franchise tag. But it’s Jason Hanson and we appreciate everything he’s done for us and we’re trying to work out a long-term deal for him.”

Hanson, 38, is due to become an unrestricted free agent on Feb. 27. He had one of the best seasons of his 17-year career in 2008, hitting 95.5 percent of his field goals en route to 88 points.

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