Under NFL rules, teams are strictly prohibited from contacting players under contract with other franchises; teams can’t even communicate with agents for such players. And since NFL player contracts all run to the conclusion of a particular league year, there can be — in theory, at least — no negotiating between teams and pending free agents between the end of the previous season and the time player contracts end in mid-March.
That is, except during one of the most absurd parts of the NFL season: the “legal tampering period,” which begins at 11 a.