Currently, a player can become an unrestricted free agent when his contract expires and that player has accrued 4 seasons in the league. If 2010 is uncapped, the number of necessary accrued NFL seasons jumps to 6 - meaning any player whose contract expires and has less than 6 years in the league will be restricted free agents, greatly reducing the number of unrestricted free agents available to NFL teams.
The league's top 8 teams will face extra restrictions. Here's how the restrictions would work (in a nut shell). Any of the 8 teams who are in the previous season's divisional playoff round can only sign free agents at the rate in which they lose them. For example, if one of the top 8 teams wants to sign a free agent to a $30 million contract, they can only do so once they lose players whose new contracts with other teams total $30 million. However, the 4 teams that reach the divisional round but lose and don't make it to the conference title games will be able to sign one player with a contract of $4.925 million or more in the first season as well as any number of players whose first-year salary is no more than $3.275 million and escalates no more than 30% per year over the life of the contract. Confusing? Yes. But it's a way to keep the best teams from being able to simply buy championships. And do keep in mind that what I explained is just the basic idea of the restrictions to be placed on those 8 teams. To my knowledge, the exact way it would work isn't 100% known at this time.
