NFL Owners May Throw Wrench into Free Agency

June 25, 2011   ·   Dave Stoessel   ·   Jump to comments

Several news sources, including Adam Schefter and the National Football Post, reported recently that the new proposed CBA will include the return of the four-year accrued service rule (plus expired contract) to be eligible for free agency.
However, Chris Mortensen told 101 ESPN that "once the free-agency frenzy commences, the owners want to have a right of first refusal as to three or four players per team." This would be the equivalent of each team having three or four more transition tags to place on impending free agents and give them the option of matching any contract offer a player receives.
Their reasoning is that, with the four-year rule, free agency would be complete chaos. Basically, there will be two years worth of fourth- and fifth-year players hitting the market at the same time.  Last year's uncapped season rules dictated that players needed six years of accrued service to be eligible to hit the market.
So as you may remember, ...

Read Complete Article at Bleacher Report - NFL
Article is property of BleacherReport.com