When the NFL launched a legal pre-free agency tampering period several years ago, many believed that the league wanted to take some of the steam out of the perception that tampering was widespread in the days prior to free agency. A league source with extensive experience negotiating contracts before, during, and after the tampering period has a different theory.
The source strongly believes that the NFL instituted the legal tampering window as a way to help teams identify free-agency targets in a more structured and orderly way.
Here’s how it works. Once a player at a given position reaches a tentative deal with one team, another team that was chasing that team knows to move on to someone else. It gives the teams a less hectic way to get their ducks in a row, in a manner that complies with league rules.
While the legal tampering period hasn’t stopped tampering from happening before the window opens, teams are more discreet than they used to be at tampering havens like the Scouting Combine. Most teams no longer provide numbers before the legal tampering period commences; as the source explained it, any numbers from new teams leaked before the legal tampering period begins are likely agent-driven fluff.
The fact that a player has reached a tentative deal during the legal tampering window doesn’t foreclose another team from trying to get the player to renege. As a practical matter, however, most teams simply respect the decision and quickly move on to the next player on the “get” list.
