Some of you may be confused. And it’s OK; it took me a few years to figure this one out.
The new league year begins at 4:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 11. That’s when free agents can sign contracts with new teams. But the two-day negotiating window, which opens at noon ET on Monday, is when free agency now begins.
The league adopted the negotiating window (sometimes called “legal tampering”) in 2012, to counter the rampant tampering that was happening before free agency opened. Before that, free agency often launched at midnight of the first day of the league year. And, amazingly, nine-figure deals would be negotiated from scratch to signature before the sun rose in New York. Likewise, players would be on planes to visit teams early the next morning — proving that there were communications before communications were allowed.
Of course, tampering is still rampant. One of the General Managers who appeared with us during Scouting Combine week in Indianapolis seemed to come very close to blurting it out during his interview. Everyone knows that, by the time the league convenes in Indiana for a week, the agent for every looming free agent is assessing the market and lining up options. It actually begins before that.
And while it’s a violation of the rules, the league doesn’t have the resources or inclination to investigate the dynamic comprehensively. It’s better to ignore it and let everyone do it and take action only when someone says or does something blatant. (Then again, former Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians said at the Combine in 2020 that the Bucs would be trying to sign Tom Brady once free agency began, and the league office didn’t even blink.)
So, in many ways, free agency has already started. As of Monday, the usual suspects (the agents) will start leaking to the usual suspects (the “insiders”) details about who will be going where.
On that point, remember this. Many of the initial reports will feature exaggerated, embellished, and in some instances fabricated numbers regarding the value of new contracts. The agents use those irregularities to create perceived wins, as part of the ongoing effort to recruit new clients. By the time the truth emerges as to a given deal, few care.
If you care about keeping tabs on what happens in free agency, don’t wait until Wednesday afternoon. Be ready to go on Monday at noon ET.
If not a little earlier. Frankly, it won’t be a surprise if reports begin to emerge this weekend as to which teams will be targeting which players once the ability to negotiate and reach deals eventually starts.
Through it all, remember this: None of the deals done between Monday at noon ET and Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. ET are truly done until signed. Multiple players have backed out of a deal that was negotiated to conclusion during the tampering period. While that will lead to hard feelings and frayed relationships between agents and teams, it has happened.
Which means that it’s important to stay plugged in from the moment the tentative deals are done on Monday and Tuesday to the point on Wednesday at which those deals become signed, sealed, and delivered.
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