NFL Free Agency: Everything You Need To Know About the Free-Agency Window

By now, you've probably heard that the NFL lockout is, at long last, over. If you have, you might just be wondering when free agency will begin, and how it will proceed.

That would indeed be the multi-million question. And here are your answers: immediately and crazily.

Make no mistake, that is not an exaggeration. After more than four months of being out of commission, football is officially back in business. There is plenty of catching up to do.

Via ESPN, here is how the rest of this week is going to play out as it pertains to NFL free agency.

Monday

The first thing that will happen is that the league will announce that rosters can expand to 90 members. At some point, the NFL will also publish an official list of free agents and distribute it to teams.

Teams will not be able to talk to any of the players on the list, but they will at least be able to start checking off players that they want to take a closer look at. No doubt names like Nnamdi Asomugha, Matt Hasselback and Ahmad Bradshaw are going to be getting a lot of check marks.

Tuesday

At 10 a.m. ET, the floodgates will officially open up. Teams can start reaching agreements with both rookie draftees and undrafted free agents. That means we could conceivably see Cam Newton and somebody like Mark Herzlich sign mere minutes apart.

Also on Tuesday, you will see signed players start to enter team facilities. On the other hand, unsigned players such as unrestricted free agents, restricted free agents and franchise players can start negotiating with teams. This includes both their own teams and other teams. However, no signings can be made quite yet.

Still, open season pretty much begins on Tuesday. Phone bills will go through the roof.

Wednesday

Players can begin reporting to training camps. Negotiations with unsigned players will continue.

Thursday

Players still aren't allowed to sign with teams, but teams will be allowed to give signed players the boot. Cuts and contract terminations start at 4 p.m. ET.

Friday

Starting at 6 p.m. ET, teams can finally start filing transactions with the league office. That means deals with both their own free agents and deals with other teams' free agents. This should be the start of a signing frenzy that will take place through the weekend and probably all the way up until the start of the preseason on August 11.

Officially, the league year will start no later than August 4, as that is the deadline for the players to ratify the collective bargaining agreement and re-certify as a union.

As you can plainly see, the immediate future is going to be pretty wild in the National Football League. What we essentially have here is a normal offseason crammed into about a two-week window. Factor in the reality that all of this will be happening according to a new CBA, and it's apparent that the dial will be well past 11.

But hey, at least we have football. Finally.