Andy Richardson
It's basically a foregone conclusion that 2010 will be an uncapped year; the league and the players won't reach any agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement anytime soon. That situation, however, won't make the free agency period more interesting; in fact it will have the opposite effect.
According to this article, a whopping 212 players who would have been unrestricted free agents with an agreement between the owners and players in place will instead be restricted free agents. There won't, then, be many big names available on the open market.
Some of the players, like Broncos pass rusher Elvis Dumervil and Cowboys wideout Miles Austin, would certainly have been franchised anyway. That won't be necessary, and as restricted free agents they can be tagged at a high enough level that there's little chance of them changing teams. As this article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer notes, last year none of the league's 55 restricted free agents changed teams.
There is the potential for more trading to occur, as has happened in the past with restricted free agents like Wes Welker, moving from Miami to New England. The start of unrestricted free agency, however, might feature only one big name -- Carolina defensive end Julius Peppers -- when it could have featured a whole lot more.
- Comments [0]
Readers' Comments
Add a Comment
Already a registered user? Please sign in to add comments.
To add comments, you must become a registered user of our site. To register, please click here.
