11. FREE AGENCY: Players will be available on the free agent market during the season via the league message board. Any NFL player not currently on a league team or dropped that week can be opened for bidding by any team at a starting minimum of $1 and with all additional increments of $1. During the regular season, Free Agency bidding is open from Tuesday, 9 A.M. CST through the earlier of 36hrs prior to the first kickoff for the week or Thursday at 6 P.M. CST (the "Weekly Cut Off Time"). If a player is dropped by a team after the Weekly Cut Off Time, that player is ineligible for Free Agency that week.

If at any time a player has gone more than 24 hours with no additional bids, he is awarded to the highest bidder. The 24 hour period is a "hard" 24 hours; meaning, if a player was last bid on at 2am, then if that player has not received a bid by 2am the next day, that player is the property of the highest bidding team.

If any player has had a new bid within 24hrs of the Weekly Cut Off Time, then the league is notified that the player is going to a blind bid. Each interested team must reply back 12 hours after the Weekly Cut Off Time with their last and final bid for the player. The player will then be awarded to the highest bidder.

Any player cut prior to 24hrs before the Weekly Cut Off Time is unavailable for First Come, First Served free agency for the week. This prohibits an owner from signing a FA, cutting an existing player and then immediately resigning the cut player to a better contract.

If a tie exists for a free agent, the player is awarded to the team with the fewest points scored for the current season. If a tie exists prior to the start of the season, the player is awarded to the team with the largest amount of unused salary cap per open roster spot.

If the commissioner is involved in the bidding, then he will send an email to another team owner to show his bid prior to opening the bids from other interested teams. All teams will be notified of the winning bid and team for all players with a blind bid as soon as practicable before the weekly games.

Once all blind bid winners are announced on the league message board, any team may claim any player not dropped prior to the Weekly Cut Off Time for $1 by merely posting the claim on the league message board. This allows teams that were not successful in the blind bid the chance to still acquire a player before the games start on for the week.

Free Agency exists from the conclusion of the Auction up through kickoff of the fist game the week before the start of C&I playoffs. In the event that a team has a player who becomes injured, cut, deactivated or otherwise made unavailable to the owner after the kickoff of the week before the start of C&I playoffs, the owner may add a player at the same position while cutting the impacted player.

If a team adds a player to their roster who is able to be placed on IR due to an Excepting Event (see below) and/or is out on the injury list for the week, the player must be left on the teams’ active roster for at least the current weeks’ game prior to being placed on IR.

Bump.

Note that in a week when there is no blind bid, FCFS starts at 6pm (central).

^^^

Blind bids for Kolby Smith need to be received by 6am (central) tomorrow morning. I will then announce the winner and FCFS will open up.

NOTE: It appears to me that the deadlines for this sort of stuff should probably get cleaned up in the offseason.

There is a Thursday game this week (and for several more weeks as well).

Does that mean any player put out today automatically goes to blind bid?

Does FCFS exist just for a brief time on Thursday after blind bids are awarded and before the game?

That's how I'd handle it...



If nobody is nominated for bidding this afternoon, FCFS opens tonight. If someone is nominated, we go to blind bid, then FCFS would open tomorrow.

A little more specific than "tonight sometime"

6pm (central)

I just wanted to highlight this part of the FA rule:

Free Agency exists from the conclusion of the Auction up through kickoff of the fist game the week before the start of C&I playoffs. In the event that a team has a player who becomes injured, cut, deactivated or otherwise made unavailable to the owner after the kickoff of the week before the start of C&I playoffs, the owner may add a player at the same position while cutting the impacted player.

....

NOTE: This is also the trading deadline ... the kickoff of the first game the week before the playoffs.

C&I Playoffs start in week 15 and conclude in week 16.

So standard free agency will be over with the kick off of the game NEXT Thursday night; i.e. one week remains in free agency.