For years, the Scouting Combine has also been Tampering Central. Next year, the tampering will be even more central to the conversations.
The recent news that free agency will begin only one day after the 2027 Combine ends means that the technically impermissible but widespread communications regarding looming free agents will be even more prevalent than usual — and more detailed.
As one source predicted, the discussions between teams and the agents representing upcoming free agents will shift from expressions of interest and generalities regarding compensation to specific negotiations about the contracts to be officially negotiated, and finalized, the day after everyone returns home from Indianapolis.
For that reason, here’s our prediction: The flow of news emerging during Combine week will include reports indicating that specific teams will be agreeing to terms (or, at a minimum, targeting) specific players when free agency begins. It will be impossible to keep a lid on things; even if neither the team nor the free agent’s agent say a thing, it takes only one team that is told that a player will be agreeing to terms with another team (or one agent who is told that a potential spot for their client will be filled by another player) to get the grapevine vibrating.
Free-agent tampering is the NFL’s dirty little offseason secret that usually is ignored. Sometimes, the league will feel compelled to make an example of a team or a coach. Typically, nothing happens.
The “negotiating period” (loosely referred to by many as “legal tampering”) started more than a decade ago as an acknowledgement that tampering happens. It had gotten beyond ridiculous; in those days, free agency opened at midnight and multi-million-dollar deals were negotiated, start to finish, in minutes.
It still happens now. News of fully-negotiated deals emerges not long after the clock strikes noon on the first day of the negotiating period. Next year, the unofficial deals will be unofficially done even earlier.
Although the offseason schedule has gotten more and more cramped, it makes sense for the league to find a way to spread out the tentpoles a little bit more. Why jam the Scouting Combine and free agency so close together?
Given that there’s usually a lull between the first wave or two of signings and the annual meetings in late March, free agency could have waited, in theory. The problem is that, after the Combine, the Pro Days start to pop up. Making it harder for teams to sign veterans while properly scouting rookies.
Regardless, there has to be a better way to do this. Beyond the crowding of major events together, next year’s proximity of Tampering Central to legal tampering will make it more obvious than ever that everyone is breaking the rules.
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