Monday Money Matters

In a mild upset, there was not one unmatched offer sheet for a Restricted Free Agent (RFA) in the NFL this year. Friday was the last day that an RFA could receive an offer sheet from another team, thereby starting the clock on the matching process. None was received, and the 2009 RFA offer period has now officially expired. 

There were a few offer sheets. Jarrett Bush of the Packers received one from Tennessee, Abram Elam of the Jets received one from Cleveland, David Anderson of the Texans received one from Denver and Naufahu Tahi of the Vikings received one from Cincinnati. All were, in a relative sense, very reasonable terms – the highest being $4.5M for three years, offered to Bush and Anderson – and all were matched by their incumbent teams. 

So why did the teams make their offers? These were players they liked and contracts that weren’t too steep but would give the incumbent team pause to match. As for compensation, had there not been a match in Anderson’s case, it would have cost the Broncos a seventh-rounder; in the other cases, the clubs wouldn’t have had to give up any consideration since those players were undrafted.

Restricted Free Agency is not what it used to be. Since Free Agency started in 1993, there have been 62 players change teams, an average of about four a year. Eleven RFAs have switched over the past three years. Indeed, my colleague here at the National Football Post, Matt Bowen, was one of these players as the Packers’ front office (including me) mistakenly decided not to match an offer sheet Matt received from the Redskins in 2003.  Glad I’ve got him back on my team now! 

What happened to Restricted Free Agency? A few things. First, the 2006 Collective Bargaining Agreement established a new allowable threshold level for tendering RFAs.  In addition to draft-round tenders and first-round tenders (and the seldom used first- and third-round supertender), there is now a second-round tender available to teams, meaning if a team tenders an RFA a certain amount ($1.545M this year) and loses a player to an offer sheet, it will receive a second-round pick in return from the offering team. Second-round picks are extremely valuable commodities, especially in this age of bloated first-round contracts. So the second-round tender has acted as a major deterrent to RFA offer sheets.

Also, teams are doing a much better job of (a) managing their Cap to allow for higher tender placements on RFAs and (b) keeping players under contract through their RFA years. Most teams are signing draft picks under the first round to four-year contracts, providing additional bonus money compared to the previous standard three-year deals but buying players out of their restricted years. The vast majority of players in their rookie contracts are now bound through their fourth (or RFA) year, meaning the pool of available RFAs has shrunk considerably.

Finally, there appears to be more civility among NFL teams, both in the front offices and ownership, about the “poison pill” issue. We remember the offer sheet madness of March 2006 with the Vikings and Steve Hutchinson of the Seahawks, followed by the Seahawks and Nate Burleson of the Vikings. While technically allowable – clauses such as requiring the team to pay exorbitant guaranteed amounts in the event the player played in the state he was currently playing in, etc. – these clauses caused some, shall we say, angst among front offices and owners. With nothing of the sort since 2006, that strategy has become less in vogue.

Indeed, a couple years ago, a similar scheme was brewing between the Patriots and Dolphins about an RFA named Wes Welker before owners Robert Kraft and Wayne Huizenga became involved and consummated a trade, rather than an offer sheet, for the player, avoiding a poison pill offer sheet.

For the reasons above and more, Restricted Free Agency no longer appears to be a tool for teams to improve their talent pool, limiting their options to improve to the draft, trades and Unrestricted Free Agency.

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