by Tom Parry-Jones
A few weeks ago, the NFL began its new league year, and while teams aren’t able to meet at the moment, it means we’re officially into the 2020 season and front offices across the league can start making preparations for when football finally returns.
It also means that players whose contracts were due to expire at the end of the 2019 season are now officially free agents, and with a few restrictions, they can be signed by any team willing to pay them.
Players who have been effective for their teams in the past will, of course, be highly prized by others, but the team they’re currently contracted to always has the first opportunity to negotiate a new deal with their player up to the point when the free agency window opens at the start of the new league year, when it becomes a free-for-all.
But not all free agents are the same, with different restrictions placed on players with different levels of experience within the league. To that end, there are three categories of free agents within the NFL:
Exclusive-rights free agents (ERFA)
Exclusive-rights free agents are players with only two seasons of experience in the league (a season defined as a minimum of six games on the active roster). Since a typical rookie deal lasts for four years, these players are usually undrafted free agents, or they can be players who came into the NFL via another route.
As exclusive-rights free agents, their former team holds all the cards when it comes to keeping or releasing them: as soon as the player is tendered with a contract (usually a one-year deal at the league minimum salary), no other team can negotiate with them.
Running back J. D. McKissic was re-signed as an ERFA by the Seahawks following the 2018 season, but was waived before the 2019 season.
Restricted free agents (RFA)
A restricted free agent is a player whose contract comes to an end after three years in the NFL, although by the terms of the most recent collective bargaining agreement (CBA), this status can only be applied to players who were undrafted, or were drafted and then injured or waived from their initial contracts.
Unlike exclusive-rights free agents, restricted free agents may negotiate a deal with another team; however, if the player is tendered a deal by his original club and then signs for another, there are certain penalties for the signing team in the form of draft picks.
| RFA tender | Salary |
| 1st round | $4.641m |
| 2nd round | $3.259m |
| Original round | $2.133m |
| First refusal | $2.133m (no draft pick) |
Teams may tender a contract to an RFA at one of four levels, with the top level corresponding to a first-round selection, then a second-rounder, then a pick matching the round the player was originally selected in, and finally no compensation and simply the right of first refusal.
You might think, “why doesn’t every team just give every RFA a first-round tender?” but the higher rounds come with higher salary requirements. In 2020, the salary for a player with a first-round tender was $4.641 million. Teams can also only offer one player per season a tender for a round higher than the one they were drafted in.
This season, some prominent RFAs included Browns running back Kareem Hunt and Saints quarterback (LOL) Taysom Hill, but no offer sheets were given.
Unrestricted free agents (UFA)
These are the most common types of free agents, those who have at least four years’ experience in the league. Any player who sees out a rookie deal, extended into its fifth year or otherwise, becomes a UFA at the end of it. They can only sign with their current team until the start of the league year, but negotiations with other teams can begin two days before that (in 2020, the league year began at 4pm ET on March 18th).
While there are no restrictions on who an unrestricted free agent can negotiate with, the player’s current team can make a claim to keep them by giving them one of two ‘tags’: the franchise tag and the transition tag. These keep the player’s rights with their team for an extra year, but at a higher salary, and each tag can only be used on one player per season.
Players can refuse to sign the tagged contract, but that would mean they had to sit out the season. Others, like Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, may have no-tag clauses put in their initial contracts.
| Position | Franchise tag salary | Transition tag salary | |||
| QB | $26.824m | $24.837m | |||
| RB | $10.278m | $8.483m | |||
| WR | $17.865m | $15.680m | |||
| TE | $10.607m | $9.117m | |||
| OL | $14.781m | $13.505m | |||
| DE | $17.788m | $15.184m | |||
| DT | $16.126m | $13.143m | |||
| LB | $15.828m | $13.737m | |||
| CB | $16.338m | $14.197m | |||
| S | $11.441m | $9.860m | |||
| K/P | $5.019m | $4.559m |
Franchise tag
The franchise tag comes in two varieties: exclusive and non-exclusive. Both of these give the player a one-year contract worth either the average of the five highest-paid players at his position or 120% of his previous year’s salary (including roster and reporting bonuses), whichever is higher.
With the exclusive tag, the player cannot negotiate with any other teams, but with the non-exclusive tag, another team can sign the player to an offer sheet. The original team then has a chance to match that offer within five days, but if they decide not to, they will receive two first-round draft picks from the signing team. Because of this, it’s very rare that another team will attempt to sign a franchise-tagged player, preferring instead to work out a trade.
Transition tag
The transition tag is much the same as the franchise tag, except there is no draft pick penalty for a team that tries to sign a tagged player and the potential salary is the average of the top 10 players at that position instead of the top 5.
All of these tools are invaluable to a general manager in maintaining control over a roster and making sure it stays under the salary cap, while also giving the team the best chance of success. Of course, free agency is just the first step in building a roster in the offseason. Following quickly on its heels: the draft.
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