With an NFL labor deal close between the Players, and Owners the league will finally be set to open for business. With the new labor deal set to allow unrestricted free agency to players with expired contracts with at least 4 years of service in the league teams will have to have a master plan to sign players on the market starting with their own free agents. The number of available free agents could be as high as 450 players. Due to the extended lockout the time to sign players will be the shortest during the free agency era.
Owners, Players, and Agents will have to have a master plan to position themselves for the frenzy that will take place shortly. Teams will need to develop a board that itemizes the order in which they go after key free agents while staying at the 123 million dollar salary cap threshold for the up and coming 2011 season. A team like the Pittsburgh Steelers are already roughly 10 million dollars over the proposed salary cap figure. The Oakland Raiders are another team already with a high salary cap number around 100 million with the signing of Richard Seymour, and Stanford Routt before the lockout took place. Teams already over the cap, or close to hitting the cap number will have to be very judicious on who they re-sign or players they attract from other teams.
The week of July 25th will likely officially become the starting period where players can begin to sign contracts. The massive pool of players who will be available during that time will undoubtedly have Agents cell phones ringing from calls by General Managers, and other team personnel. Couple that with teams having to sign their own rookie draft picks, and add to that rookie free agents who weren't drafted creates a position with a lot of moving parts in terms of player signees. Teams that already have a plan in place before the process takes place will prove to be the most successful during the free agency period.
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