When NFL owners held a press conference last week to announce they had ratified their proposed CBA, they also released a schedule of how the league would transition out of the lockout. With the CBA not being ratified by players a day later like the owners initially hoped, that schedule had to be thrown out. According to ESPN, it has been replaced with a schedule that looks something like this for the week ahead:
- Monday: If the players ratify the new CBA (they are on the conference call to do just that right now), an announcement will be made saying that rosters can include up to 90 players. Also, the list of free agents will be given out to teams.
- Tuesday: Teams can start reaching agreements with their draft picks and undrafted free agents beginning at 10 a.m. Also, teams can reach agreements with free agents (theirs and other teams' FAs) and allow players under contract to report to their facilities. UPDATE: Pro Football Talk reports that teams will be able to make trades beginning on Tuesday. Also, teams will be able to sign their draft picks and undrafted free agents.
- Wednesday: The first set of training camps opens. (Note: Matt Pomeroy is reporting that it now looks like no camps will open until Friday at the earliest, so standby for confirmation of this part of the timeline.)
- Thursday: At 4 p.m., teams can start releasing players.
- Friday: At 6 p.m., teams can start to file transactions with the league office. This means that actual signings can't happen until Friday evening, but agreements can be made as soon as tomorrow morning under this timeline.
Assuming everything goes according to plan today, we are in for quite the wild ride over the course of the next week.