Steve Luciano/Associated Press
The NFL's free-agency period opens at 4 p.m. ET on March 18, but to think teams, players and agents aren't already working behind the scenes to set up meetings and begin conversations about where the top of the market will land would be naive.
Tampering happens. The NFL knows it happens; it just doesn't want to hear about it publicly. But we hear about it privately, with most rumors starting at the Senior Bowl in late January and then becoming a roar at the NFL Scouting Combine.
At the point between Mobile, Alabama, and Indianapolis, beginning Feb.