You’ll hear a lot about free agency and the rules over the next three weeks. There will be breathless speculation over what will go down during the NFL’s so-called “tampering period,” a 48-hour stretch when teams and agents can legally negotiate for the first time. There’ll be clocks counting down to March 14 at 4 p.m.
Just know this: Pretty much all of it is for show. The deals that will be done in 20 days? Those are real. But most of the other stuff you’ll hear between now and then isn’t much above fiction.
Listen to the words of one prominent agent, who’s going back with us through a timeline from a few years back, when a client of his hit the market.