NFL. Begins Very Short Off-Season

By JUDY BATTISTA
Published: July 26, 2011

The madness really began Monday night, when the NFL. e-mailed a memo to all 32 teams at 6:20 p.m. telling them they were allowed to start negotiating contracts with rookies in 40 minutes. That was a change from the timeline the league had set out earlier in the day the lockout was put to rest, and it was so unexpected that at least one team told an agent it did not see the note for several hours after it was sent.

But for most people, it was welcome news. On Tuesday, the four-day off-season took off with head-spinning ferocity, with a large number of veterans told they would be cut to make salary-cap space, undrafted free agents signed to fill out rosters that will expand to 90 players, and veteran free agents negotiating new deals.

“Like New Year’s Eve and the new millennium all rolled into one,” said Joe Linta, an agent who has undrafted free agents, drafted rookies and veteran free agents to make deals for. “It was like a huge dam bursting. A million phone calls.”

It will become more intense Friday, when free-agent signings become official. But the relentlessness of the transactions was made apparent by just one team: the St. Louis Rams announced they had signed 24 undrafted rookies, which in a normal year would have been done in isolation in the hours after the draft ended in April, not in the middle of a maelstrom of other negotiations.

“Usually, the three hours after the draft is pretty crazy,” Linta said. “What happened in the last 24 hours made that look like a night spent in the library.”

The biggest news, as always, was generated by quarterbacks. (Not Brett Favre, though. He’s still retired.) The Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown, engaged in a staredown with his disgruntled franchise quarterback Carson Palmer, announced that Palmer was retiring with four years remaining on his contract. The reason? Brown would not acquiesce to the 31-year-old Palmer’s request to be traded from the perennially underachieving team, even though Palmer would probably bring the Bengals a few good draft picks in return. Perhaps Brown was cutting off his franchise’s nose to spite its face, but for Brown, there was a principle at stake.

“Carson signed a contract,” Brown said. “He made a commitment. He gave his word. We relied on his word. We relied on his commitment. We expected him to perform here. He’s going to walk away from his commitment. We aren’t going to reward him for doing it.”

In Seattle, the situation was much different. The Seattle Times reported that the Seahawks would not bring back quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who had been with the team for 10 years, and that they were negotiating a deal with the former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Tarvaris Jackson. That created a domino effect among quarterbacks. The Seahawks were also thought to be potential trade suitors for Philadelphia’s Kevin Kolb. Kolb, who is now Michael Vick’s backup, was widely expected to be traded as soon as the rules allowed on Tuesday, but the Eagles sat tight, perhaps hoping that more of a market would develop than the Arizona Cardinals, who have long been seen as Kolb’s probable landing spot.

That would leave the Broncos’ Kyle Orton, who The Denver Post reported Monday was also on the trading block, with Tim Tebow possibly replacing him, and Donovan McNabb, who is likely to be traded after his one disastrous season in Washington, available.

At least there is some demand for all those quarterbacks. For the raft of veterans who will be cut later this week, finding a new job could be much more difficult than usual. Cap cuts are usually made in mid-March, giving those let go four months to find a new team before training camps open. But this year, the job market has been condensed into a few days, with teams hoping to have their rosters mostly set by the time camps open. Among the expected cap casualties later this week: Dallas receiver Roy Williams and running back Marion Barber, and Baltimore receiver Derrick Mason and tight end Todd Heap.

Next up are likely to be drafted rookie contracts, although two agents said they might go more slowly than expected because agents and general managers were still trying to absorb the new rookie wage system.

An indication of how confusing the first day of post-lockout life was: one agent said Tuesday he thought there would be very little negotiating involved in rookie contracts, with players’ play slotted according to where they were picked, while another agent said he thought there would be even more negotiating room than before.