JULY 11: We’re not alone in our belief that the NFL’s recent schedule changes will create a brand new experience on the NFL Scouting Mix. Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio asserts that the event has been “Tampering Central” for years, and he believes that the truncated schedule will only exacerbate what he calls “the NFL’s dirty little offseason secret.”
Florio points out that, even before the change, reports of fully negotiated deals have often broken the airwaves minutes after the opening of the legal tampering period. Knowing that that date now falls mere hours after the conclusion of the mix, he predicts that we’re more likely to start seeing rumors of essentially accomplished deals throughout the weekend as agents and personnel staffers congregate in Indianapolis.
JULY 7: Never settling for complacency, the NFL has continuously made changes and updates to the league yr’s schedule throughout its history, and two changes this yr will force quick turnarounds for personnel departments. These changes affect two of the most important days for roster change within the NFL: the ultimate roster cut deadline and the primary days of free agency.
It wasn’t way back that the league went by a schedule that featured a couple of roster cut deadline throughout the preseason to progressively force teams to scale back their 90-man offseason rosters to the 53-man rosters with which they might start the season. In 2017, the NFL nixed the deadline to go from 90 to 75 players and altered to a single deadline in what was viewed as an effort to scale back the variety of injuries to key players in the ultimate week of the preseason.
The nine roster cut deadlines we’ve seen since then have all occurred on the Tuesday after the ultimate weekend of preseason games, giving front offices a couple of days after their final exhibition contest to find out their final roster decisions. This yr, the third and final weekend of the preseason will happen from Thursday, August 27, to Saturday, August 29. Per Tom Pelissero of NFL Network, the deadline to get right down to 53 players will probably be lower than 24 hours after the ultimate preseason game ends, at 6pm EST on Sunday, August 30.
The league also shortened the time between final roster cuts and the deadline to submit waiver claims. Previously, final roster cuts were due by 4pm on Tuesday and waiver claims by 12pm the subsequent day — a 20 hour turnaround. This yr, waiver claims will probably be due 1pm EST on Monday, August 31, 19 hours after the roster cut deadline.
The change in the beginning of free agency is definitely a change of the method’s timing in relation to the NFL Scouting Mix. In previous years, the mix would happen over the ultimate week of February just bleeding into March. Per week or so later, the “legal tampering” window would open 52 hours before the beginning of the brand new league yr, the official start of free agency. Pelissero reported today that, with the mix getting pushed back, the ultimate day of the event will probably be Monday, March 8, and the free agent negotiating window will open the subsequent day, Tuesday, March 9.
This is bound to make the NFL Scouting Mix a far more energetic event. Apart from the plain purpose of evaluating draft prospects, the mix has historically been an unofficial space by which top team executives and agents can meet to gauge interest in players and costs. Now that free agents will give you the chance to come back to verbal agreements a day after the mix ends, one would imagine activity will pick up within the halls of Lucas Oil Stadium.