Free Agency to Start after the Fourth of July Fireworks?

Adam Schefter of ESPN has a prediction about NFL Free Agency, something that if the lockout wasn’t happening would have started the first week in March. Schefter says he thinks it not begin until at least after the fourth of July.

The next leverage point is the 8th Circuit’s June 3 hearing on the appeal of Judge Susan Nelson’s decision to lift the lockout. The 8th Circuit’s language this week suggests the Players will lose that appeal, at which point they will have to take a good, hard look in the mirror.

ESPN’s NFL business analyst, Andrew Brandt, believes there is now a chance of a new CBA through mediation, “hopefully made by mid-to-late July, setting up the start of football.”

Players are waiting to know exactly what’s going to happen when it comes to free agency, and while teams were able to go forth with the draft, they have had to sit back and wait to talk to their own free agents, as well as some teams may be targeting.