NFL free agency explained, from salary cap and tampering to franchise and transition tags

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NFL free agency explained, from salary cap and tampering to franchise and transition tags

2025-03-10 00:19 Last Updated At：00:20

The NFL’s free agency period opens Monday with a 52-hour legal tampering period ahead of the official start of the new league year on Wednesday.

Several high-profile players, including quarterbacks Russell Wilson, Sam Darnold and Justin Fields, will be free to sign a contract with a new team.

Here’s an explanation of rules and terms:

At 12 p.m. EDT Monday, teams can start negotiating with players who will become unrestricted free agents when their contracts expire at the start of the new league year on 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday. Players can’t sign with new teams until the league year officially begins. The two-day negotiating period applies only to players who will be unrestricted free agents.

Any player with four or more accrued seasons — six or more regular-season games on a club’s active/inactive, reserve/injured or reserve/physically unable to perform lists — whose contract has expired becomes an unrestricted free agent and may negotiate and sign with any team.

Restricted free agents are players with three accrued seasons who have received a qualifying offer when their current deals expire on Wednesday.

Each team can designate one potential free agent a franchise player. Only Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins and Chiefs guard Trey Smith received the tag before the March 4 deadline.

An exclusive franchise player is not free to sign with another club and is offered the greater of the average of the top five salaries at the player’s position for the current year as of the end of the restricted free agent signing period on April 18; or the amount of the required tender for a nonexclusive franchise player.

A nonexclusive franchise player can sign with another team, but that club will owe his previous team two first-round draft picks. All the players tagged this year are nonexclusive.

A team has to sign a franchise player by Nov. 11.

The transition tag is a one-year offer for the average of top 10 salaries at the position. It guarantees the original club the right of first refusal to match any offer the player might receive from another team.

The tagging team is awarded no compensation if it chooses not to match a deal. No player received the transition tag this year.

Teams can decide to withdraw franchise and transition tags and the player automatically becomes an unrestricted free agent.

The salary cap is $279.2 million per club, up from $255.4 million last year. Teams must be under the salary cap by 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday.

A team may carry over salary cap space from one league year to the following league year by submitting notice to the NFL prior to 4 p.m. EDT on the day following the team’s final regular-season game. A team can carry over 100% of its remaining 2024 room to its adjusted salary cap for 2025.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Australian leader visits Indonesia seeking deeper economic and defense ties

2025-05-15 11:45 Last Updated At：11:52

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Australia’s newly reelected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto on Thursday, in a visit aiming to strengthen his country’s economic and defense ties with its closest major neighbor.

Albanese arrived in the capital, Jakarta, on Wednesday evening, a day after his new government was sworn in, to promote the importance of building stronger ties with Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

“That is … a signal to our region of the importance that we place on this region. We will be in the fastest growing region of the world in human history,” Albanese said in an interview last week with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

He described Subianto as a “good friend of mine" and hailed the two countries' close relations.

Albanese’s center-left Labor Party won a second three-year term in an emphatic election victory May 3.

He was welcomed by Subianto in a ceremony at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta where he was escorted by dozens of motorized troops and cavalry while about 3,200 schoolchildren waved the flags of both countries along the streets, according to Indonesia's presidential office.

The two leaders' talks are expected to “produce several concrete agreements that could bring direct benefits to the people of both countries," the office said.

Albanese’s two-day visit is an indication of the countries' strategic closeness. Their discussions will also include food security, energy, trade and other bilateral priorities, Indonesia's Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

Newly elected Australian prime ministers typically make their first bilateral visit to Asia, usually Indonesia.

In his first visit to Indonesia after his inauguration in 2022, Albanese also visited Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province with close ties to Indigenous Australians.

Albanese’s second visit to Jakarta comes amid global economic upheaval sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's “reciprocal tariff” trade policy.

Australia was hit during its election campaign with a global-minimum 10% tariff on exports to the U.S. despite trading with its bilateral free trade partner at a deficit for decades, while Indonesia is subject to 32%. The two countries have for the past month negotiated with Washington for a better trade deal.

Media reports said last month that Russia told Jakarta it wants to base long-range warplanes in Papua, the most eastern Indonesian province, a plan that was raised as a security issue during the Australian election campaign. Indonesia has told Australia that no such Russian base would be allowed.

Given their geographical proximity, Indonesia and Australia have traditionally maintained close ties with each other, including in matters of security and defense, despite the fact that each country has chosen to respond differently to the rivalry between the U.S. and China in the region.

The two neighbors last year signed a historic Defense Cooperation Agreement that will allow more complex joint activities and exercises. Canberra hailed the agreement as the “deepest and most significant” defense deal in the two countries’ bilateral ties.

Albanese will head on to Rome on Friday morning to attend the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV on Sunday.

Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk in Melbourne contributed to this report.