Method and system for tag arbitration in switches

Method and system for a switch element is provided. The method includes (a) receiving a portion of a packet at a port of the switch element; (b) generating a tag based on an estimated packet size obtained from the portion of the packet; (c) sending the tag with the estimated packet size to a transmit segment of the port; (d) selecting a request from among a plurality of pending requests for processing the packet associated with the tag; (e) receiving an actual packet size for the packet in step (a); (f) determining if the actual packet size is different from the estimated packet size; and (g) adjusting an arbitration weight used for selecting the request in step (d), if the actual packet size is different from the estimated packet size.