When does NFL free agency start?

Free agency in the National Football League can be a very, very confusing process to understand, even for the league’s most ardent fans. From the odd schedule to its various designations, free agency is a layered affair, and the fact that teams both have a salary cap that also seems quite easy to manipulate makes it all the more difficult to wrap your head around.

So let’s try to help.

First of all, it’s important to note the schedule of free agency. A new year in the NFL does not begin after the Super Bowl as some people might expect. Instead, there is a month-long period or so of downtime within which NFL teams are given some space to evaluate their rosters, hire coaches, and make important internal decisions to adjust their approach for the coming offseason. This time of year can feel very slow, but the truth is that some teams have been planning for the future since November while others have been playing well into February.

Let’s look at the NFL calendar and lay out some important things about understanding free agency.

This means that the official league year begins a bit later than expected, and this year that day comes on Wednesday, March 16 at 1:00 p.m. When the league officially starts a new year, then every contract in the league also flips with the calendar. Every player who is not under contract for the 2022 season is suddenly set free of any obligation and that’s what free agency means.

The league used to try to keep some semblance of a lockdown on negotiations ahead of time for free agents, but the idea of some random deadline at midnight allowing the start of communication between agents and general managers felt so elementary. After all, if an agent and GM are hanging out at the NFL combine, are they really not going to discuss the player they both know has the team’s interest?

It was a poorly kept secret that discussions and contract negotiations were happening behind the scenes before the FA deadline was opened, so the league brought on board a “legal tampering period” which begins 48 hours before the new league year opens. That is what makes Monday, March 14 (at noon) so important. It’s at that point that teams and agents can “begin” to talk and at least not be so secretive about it, which is why Monday will be the day where rumors will begin to fly.

From there, teams will lock down players unofficially until they can legally fly that player into town to sign the contract following March 16, and from there, teams will continue to sign free agents for the rest of the year. However, the biggest frenzy will come in the first week or two following free agency.

For more information on the various designations of free agency and more, you can find more help here.