EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — The annual Scouting Combine is generally considered to mark the start of offseason business in the NFL, with every team's key decision makers and player agents centrally located for one of the few times of the year.
The week in Indianapolis usually lays the groundwork for upcoming roster decisions, signings and contract re-structuring. This year, the foundation being built was a bit different for NFL teams and agents, labeled by one agent as an "information gathering session."
The need for urgency at the Combine, and some under-the-table negotiating, has been lessened as the NFL has adopted a rule change to allow for more preparation at the start of free agency. For the first time, the league this year will allow a three-day period during which agents can negotiate contracts legally before the March 12 start of free agency. The key word being legally.
In an effort to stop, or at least slow, the tampering that has gone on in the past, especially at the Combine, the NFL opened the three days as a "time to shop the market."
"I think it's more of a way to say, 'We know everybody's tampering anyway, so let's just at least create the perception that there's a three-day window now, so at least you're doing it legally for 72 hours,' " one agent told FoxSportsNorth.com this week. "It's a little ignorant to think that the fans, the media and everyone thinks that $60 million deals are getting negotiated at 12:01 a.m. They take a little longer than 45 seconds to get done."
Gone are the days of the Midnight Eastern time start to free agency, when deals would be agreed to before the sun would rise. Last year, with the start of the new collective bargaining agreement, the NFL started free agency at 4 p.m. ET. This year, the official start to free agency and deals being finalized is 4 p.m. ET on March 12. In the past, before the new CBA was adopted in the fall of 2011, there was often just three days between the Combine and the start of free agency. Now, teams have two weeks to prepare.
"It's no longer this mad dash where you have to try to get a deal in place, illegally or under the radar, in preparation for free agency starting right away," another agent said. "Those are the differences and benefits that I've seen."
The new three-day negotiating period has led to a different strategy for teams and players. Now players can test the market without the urgency of signing the first deal presented. Teams, too, believe they can get a better indication of just what the market might be for a player they're interested in signing.
"It will be interesting because I think with the ability to talk with the free agents before it actually happens, you'll probably get a truer, maybe, idea of where the market is going to be on that player because that agent wants to have the ability to talk to other teams and he'll have a sense of potentially where his market is going to be, and you know its legal what he's telling you," Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman said.
Spielman, though not expected to be terribly active in free agency, will certainly have his eye on what the market is establishing for certain players and positions. Minnesota has several free agents of its own it hopes to re-sign, such as right tackle Phil Loadholt, fullback Jerome Felton, linebackers Erin Henderson and Jasper Brinkley and safety Jamarca Sanford. Though Spielman is free to negotiate with the team's own free agents prior to the deadline, contact with other players is considered tampering.
Meanwhile, Loadholt, Felton and the rest of Minnesota's 11 unrestricted free agents can begin shopping their services March 9 to see what interest other teams might have before free agency opens three days later. Though agents and teams can talk during the three-day period, teams still cannot talk to the individual players or bring them in for visits.
"They can't bring him in, wine and dine him and all of that stuff, so there's still going to be sales that need to be done in some circumstances when free agency begins," an agent said. "Players who are holding the cards, so to speak. Those guys are still going to have to be courted."
"If anything, it might, when guys can start taking visits and really start negotiating, it may take some of the bluffing out of the game where guys' original teams may put more onus on the fact that someone is going to visit somewhere else and that may impact what the players' perceived value is," another agent said.
More than usual, teams and agents aren't sure what will happen when free agency hits in two weeks. Between the already backdated start, a steady salary cap and the new three-day negotiating window, many believe there will be a discovery process.
"This is the first time going through it so it kind of will be interesting to see," Spielman said. "It's funny, because now if anything gets done when free agency kicks off, you'll know why. Because there has been negotiations going on. You won't have to get a multi-million deal done in an hour now."
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