NFL legal tampering period starts March 7th.
In the NFL, it is against the rules to discuss another team’s players with the media, the players’ agents, or in the general public. If a club does discuss another team’s players in such a manner then the NFL could find a team guilty of tampering.
According to the NFL, tampering is defined as “any public or private statement of interest, qualified or unqualified, in another club’s player to that player’s agent or representative, or to a member of the news media.”
In layman’s terms, tampering is a “look but don’t touch” policy. Teams are only allowed to privately discuss acquiring a player only within their inner circle.
However, the NFL does make a concession regarding tampering. Due to changes made by the NFL in December, teams are allowed to “legally tamper” with pending free agents as long as teams wait until two days before free agency begins.
Here is the new anti-tampering period guideline that just passed. It's now just two days before free agency pic.twitter.com/Gas1NIkfl5
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 2, 2015
As a result of the changes made by the NFL, clubs are allowed to “legally tamper” with players from March 7-9. During the period of allowed tampering, teams are allowed to discuss contracts with players and offer players contracts. The teams are forbidden from signing players to an official contract.
Starting at 4 p.m. ET on March 9, free agency officially begins. This allows teams and players to discuss and sign contracts. Usually, on the first day of free agency many huge deals are quickly announced – an occasional tip that parties may have tampered. Teams and players will already have verbally agreed to terms and wait patiently until the start of free agency to sign the deals.