Free agency in the NFL opened last week but what does that mean? Didn’t the season just end with the Super Bowl? Why are we still talking about football?
Turns out football doesn’t sleep. While there are no games currently being played, teams are busy during free agency.
What is a free agent?
Understanding a free agent begins with understanding the basics of paying players and contracts. To play for a team, a player signs a contract that specifies the amount of money they will be paid over a specific timeline, pretty standard stuff.
The tricky part is staying under the salary cap when there are 53 players on each roster. The salary cap is the total amount of money a team can spend paying their players in a season. This prevents teams with more money and larger markets from poaching players from smaller teams and it keeps things fair.
When a team does not pay a player, they become a free agent and start talking with other teams. Think of being on a team as being in a relationship; being a free agent as being single and free agency is one big dating app.
Clearing cap space
When a team is clearing cap space, they are getting rid of players to stay under that salary cap, because going over budget has consequences given out by the league.
This is not just teams dumping players they don’t want. Instead, many stars who were just too expensive for their teams find themselves here.
Another way of getting rid of players is through trades. Trades happen between two or more teams where they can exchange players and draft picks. Trading a player for another player seems simple enough, but what is this new draft pick currency?
Every April the NFL drafts college athletes to build their team. All you need to know is that the draft has an order with the worst teams getting first dibs at new talent. A team can trade their spot in the draft line for players or even another draft pick.
The dreaded dead cap
Another term you might hear being thrown around at this time is dead cap. The term sounds scary and it’s a team’s worst nightmare.
Remember those contracts we talked about? The contract is broken down into guaranteed money that is given to the player no matter what and incentives, which are bonuses a player gets for achieving certain statistical feats.
The guaranteed money is the one we are focused on. There are times where players do not live up to expectations and end up getting dumped by the team before the years specified on their contract passes by.
A team is still responsible for paying the player any guaranteed money on their contract, even if they don’t want the player through the full contract.
Dead cap always hinders teams, and it feels a little embarrassing as they are paying players to not play for them.
The franchise tag
One term that’s always been confusing for even seasoned football fans is the franchise tag.
Sometimes, a team wants to hold on to a player despite flirting dangerously close with the salary cap, but the franchise tag is here to bail them out.
Instead of letting a player become a free agent, the current team can place a franchise tag on him for one more year.
The franchise tag is a non-negotiable, one-year contract that is either 120 percent of the player’s last salary or the average of the top five salaries in that position, whichever amount is highest.
The tag is made for the teams with commitment issues that either do not have the current funds to give the player a long-term contract or want one more year to evaluate if the player is worth of a long-term contract.
All together now
These terms we just learned wrap up the free agency period. Teams cannot sign players whenever they want, but there is a time window the league gives that allows negotiating and signing players.
This creates chaos and the teams scramble to sign the high notoriety players in the free-agent pool during the first few weeks of the season.
During this time, make sure your phone is fully charged just in case receive a notification for a high-profile free agency signing.
Action during free agency is not as exciting as the game, but it is one of the only tastes of football we will get between February and September, so enjoy it.
Graphic via The Scribe archive.