mcteems said:
Does anyone know for certain when free agency begins, and when RFA and UFA ends?
I answered my own question. Here is what I found:
The free agency signing period begins on March 2nd. Restricted Free Agents must have an offer on or before that date from another team to be considered in a deal. The current team holding the RFA can match the offer being made on the RFA, or get compensation in draft picks and lose the RFA to the bidding team.
Unrestricted Free Agents start signing on March 2nd as well. However, they have no limitations other than the free agency signing ending date of July 15th.
No free agents can be signed to other teams after July 15th.
So this tells me that the
HOT RFAs out there will start getting offers probably sometime in February. There probably won't be many, but they will make big headlines because RFAs usually come at a high price (contract and draft picks). But don't forget the franchise tag either. Someone like Drew Brees will probably get tagged and never hit the market.
Once March 2nd hits, all hell will probably break loose and the top UFAs will start getting offers left and right since it is usually much cheaper to get a UFA than a RFA. If teams wait until May or June to sign their free agents, they will be picking from the bottom of the barrel. Let's hope Saban has his candidates ready to go before March 2nd.
Quick Note: From now on when you here "Restricted Free Agent", you should be thinking "costly". So that player better be worth it. When you hear "Unrestricted Free Agent", you should be thinking "cheaper". So that player is less of a gamble. Also, a pro-bowl caliber player will never hit the free agency market at all. The will get the franchise tag, unless a team is dumb enough to let two star athletes expire contracts in the same year.
