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.
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FILE - Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold looks to pass during an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is meeting with oil executives at the White House on Friday in hopes of securing $100 billion in investments to revive Venezuela’s ability to fully tap into its expansive reserves of petroleum — a plan that rides on their comfort in making commitments in a country plagued by instability, inflation and uncertainty.
Since the U.S. military raid to capture former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, Trump has quickly pivoted to portraying the move as a newfound economic opportunity for the U.S., seizing tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, saying the U.S. is taking over the sales of 30 million to 50 million barrels of previously sanctioned Venezuelan oil and will be controlling sales worldwide indefinitely.
On Friday, U.S. forces seized their fifth tanker over the past month that has been linked to Venezuelan oil. The action reflected the determination of the U.S. to fully control the exporting, refining and production of Venezuelan petroleum, a sign of the Trump administration's plans for ongoing involvement in the sector as it seeks commitments from private companies.
It's all part of a broader push by Trump to keep gasoline prices low. At a time when many Americans are concerned about affordability, the incursion in Venezuela melds Trump’s assertive use of presidential powers with an optical spectacle meant to convince Americans that he can bring down energy prices.
The meeting, set for 2:30 p.m. EST, will be open to the news media, according to an update to the president's daily schedule. “At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” Trump said Friday in a pre-dawn social media post.
Trump is set to meet with executives from 17 oil companies, according to the White House. Among the companies attending are Chevron, which still operates in Venezuela, and ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, which both had oil projects in the country that were lost as part of a 2007 nationalization of private businesses under Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez.
The president is meeting with a wide swath of domestic and international companies with interests ranging from construction to the commodity markets. Other companies slated to be at the meeting include Halliburton, Valero, Marathon, Shell, Singapore-based Trafigura, Italy-based Eni and Spain-based Repsol.
Large U.S. oil companies have so far largely refrained from affirming investments in Venezuela as contracts and guarantees need to be in place. Trump has suggested on social media that America would help to backstop any investments.
Venezuela’s oil production has slumped below one million barrels a day. Part of Trump's challenge to turn that around will be to convince oil companies that his administration has a stable relationship with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez, as well as protections for companies entering the market.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are slated to attend the oil executives meeting, according to the White House.
Meanwhile, the United States and Venezuelan governments said Friday they were exploring the possibility of r estoring diplomatic relations between the two countries, and that a delegation from the Trump administration arrived to the South American nation on Friday.
The small team of U.S. diplomats and diplomatic security officials traveled to Venezuela to make a preliminary assessment about the potential re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, the State Department said in a statement.
Trump also announced on Friday he’d meet with President Gustavo Petro in early February, but called on the Colombian leader to make quick progress on stemming flow of cocaine into the U.S.
Trump, following the ouster of Maduro, had made vague threats to take similar action against Petro. Trump abruptly changed his tone Wednesday about his Colombian counterpart after a friendly phone call in which he invited Petro to visit the White House.
President Donald Trump waves as he walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
