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Prelude to NFL free agency starts today
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_55f09079-b95d-566e-90d2-b1de7d9ae9fa.html
Beginning at 11 a.m. today, it’s ready, set, go for NFL free agency. Well, sort of.
That’s when a three-day window opens for contact and negotiation between clubs and player agents. No contract can be executed — or signed — until the start of the free agency period at 3 p.m. Tuesday.
During the three-day window, agents are not allowed to talk directly to players, only team officials. No player visits are allowed, except for players visiting their current clubs. Teams and player agents aren’t even allowed to discuss or make travel arrangements (for free-agent visits by players to other clubs.)
This is the only the second time the window has been used in a non-lockout year.
“To be honest with you, I think it’s very helpful in that it organizes some chaos,” Rams general manager Les Snead said. “It’s just a more structured time.”
As Snead puts it, teams will “start to flirt” with players today in conversations with agents. As the weekend progresses teams and agents start talking numbers and by Sunday night, Monday morning, things start to clarify as far as the top-tier free agents are concerned.
“The agent says, ‘I’ve a general market (in terms of dollars) for a player,’ “ Snead says. “He may mention it to the club. The club may say, ‘We can’t get there.’ It helps everybody line up.”
So instead of a team scrambling into a backup plan after backing away from a player, it might have a day or two to regroup under the three-day window.
Elaborating on that point, Rams executive vice president Kevin Demoff said: “Where we found it to be valuable last year is if you were talking to a player and it didn’t look like you were gonna have the chance to do a deal, you could in an orderly fashion move on to the next player on your list.
“And you could evaluate your different options. You could be a little more strategic in your discussions than you had been before. And I think players could get a better sense of all the teams that were interested in their services before the start of free agency.”
Under the old system, it was more like a frantic land rush at the start of free agency. Now, because there’s a full three days to gauge interest and gather information on competing offers, it helps teams avoid making mistakes — either by overbidding on a player they end up signing, or underbidding on a player who gets away.
“In the previous world it was always: Make the first call. Make the first contact. Try to get the first visit,” Demoff said. “Now in this case, you can really sell the organization and hope that you put your best foot forward. And then when the players start to make decisions about visits on Tuesday, it’s based on all the right reasons and not just on economics.”
In other words, it becomes a little less like speed dating.
In the past, the NFL scouting combine always signaled the unofficial start of the “tampering season.” It would be naive to think tampering no longer occurs at the combine since the advent of the three-day negotiating window. When all the team executives and most of the league’s player agents are gathered in one spot, things are going to happen.
But according to veteran player agent Alan Herman (who represents Rams offensive lineman Rodger Saffold), things were pretty much on the up and up this year in Indianapolis.
“Everybody’s talking to everybody at the combine,” he said. “But what I found very interesting this year, especially with the number of agents we have in our company and the number of players we have who are free agents, is that not one team made a proposal or even came close to making a proposal on a player. Over the four days I was there, not one team came close.
“So I am sure (NFL teams) were all schooled by the (NFL’s) management council to make sure that everybody did the same thing. And nobody so-called ‘tampered’ with another team’s player by asking an inappropriate question or mentioning a dollar figure should that player be free at a certain point.
“So what’s going to happen now is that all those teams you met with, or shook hands with, or had a drink with — a general manager, or whatever the situation was at the combine — they are now gonna step up in this three-day window.
“And I’ll use my player as an example. If you’re interested in Rodger Saffold, then you’re calling me on Saturday and you’re not waiting until Sunday. Because you want to express your interest and start talking about numbers.”
So here we go. Let the controlled chaos begin. At least this year, the window isn’t starting at the stroke of midnight on Friday night as was the case in 2013.
“Last year, nobody knew if you should be in the office at 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning to make calls,” Demoff said. “Did anybody want to take your call to say, ‘Hey, we’ll talk tomorrow morning?”’
That’s not necessary this time around.
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_55f09079-b95d-566e-90d2-b1de7d9ae9fa.html
Beginning at 11 a.m. today, it’s ready, set, go for NFL free agency. Well, sort of.
That’s when a three-day window opens for contact and negotiation between clubs and player agents. No contract can be executed — or signed — until the start of the free agency period at 3 p.m. Tuesday.
During the three-day window, agents are not allowed to talk directly to players, only team officials. No player visits are allowed, except for players visiting their current clubs. Teams and player agents aren’t even allowed to discuss or make travel arrangements (for free-agent visits by players to other clubs.)
This is the only the second time the window has been used in a non-lockout year.
“To be honest with you, I think it’s very helpful in that it organizes some chaos,” Rams general manager Les Snead said. “It’s just a more structured time.”
As Snead puts it, teams will “start to flirt” with players today in conversations with agents. As the weekend progresses teams and agents start talking numbers and by Sunday night, Monday morning, things start to clarify as far as the top-tier free agents are concerned.
“The agent says, ‘I’ve a general market (in terms of dollars) for a player,’ “ Snead says. “He may mention it to the club. The club may say, ‘We can’t get there.’ It helps everybody line up.”
So instead of a team scrambling into a backup plan after backing away from a player, it might have a day or two to regroup under the three-day window.
Elaborating on that point, Rams executive vice president Kevin Demoff said: “Where we found it to be valuable last year is if you were talking to a player and it didn’t look like you were gonna have the chance to do a deal, you could in an orderly fashion move on to the next player on your list.
“And you could evaluate your different options. You could be a little more strategic in your discussions than you had been before. And I think players could get a better sense of all the teams that were interested in their services before the start of free agency.”
Under the old system, it was more like a frantic land rush at the start of free agency. Now, because there’s a full three days to gauge interest and gather information on competing offers, it helps teams avoid making mistakes — either by overbidding on a player they end up signing, or underbidding on a player who gets away.
“In the previous world it was always: Make the first call. Make the first contact. Try to get the first visit,” Demoff said. “Now in this case, you can really sell the organization and hope that you put your best foot forward. And then when the players start to make decisions about visits on Tuesday, it’s based on all the right reasons and not just on economics.”
In other words, it becomes a little less like speed dating.
In the past, the NFL scouting combine always signaled the unofficial start of the “tampering season.” It would be naive to think tampering no longer occurs at the combine since the advent of the three-day negotiating window. When all the team executives and most of the league’s player agents are gathered in one spot, things are going to happen.
But according to veteran player agent Alan Herman (who represents Rams offensive lineman Rodger Saffold), things were pretty much on the up and up this year in Indianapolis.
“Everybody’s talking to everybody at the combine,” he said. “But what I found very interesting this year, especially with the number of agents we have in our company and the number of players we have who are free agents, is that not one team made a proposal or even came close to making a proposal on a player. Over the four days I was there, not one team came close.
“So I am sure (NFL teams) were all schooled by the (NFL’s) management council to make sure that everybody did the same thing. And nobody so-called ‘tampered’ with another team’s player by asking an inappropriate question or mentioning a dollar figure should that player be free at a certain point.
“So what’s going to happen now is that all those teams you met with, or shook hands with, or had a drink with — a general manager, or whatever the situation was at the combine — they are now gonna step up in this three-day window.
“And I’ll use my player as an example. If you’re interested in Rodger Saffold, then you’re calling me on Saturday and you’re not waiting until Sunday. Because you want to express your interest and start talking about numbers.”
So here we go. Let the controlled chaos begin. At least this year, the window isn’t starting at the stroke of midnight on Friday night as was the case in 2013.
“Last year, nobody knew if you should be in the office at 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning to make calls,” Demoff said. “Did anybody want to take your call to say, ‘Hey, we’ll talk tomorrow morning?”’
That’s not necessary this time around.
