The 2025 NFL Unrestricted Free Agency Signing Period is upon us, set to start with the legal negotiating window on Monday and the opening of the NFL league year, trading period and free agency on Wednesday.
This phase of the league's offseason is important every year to every team, and especially to a team such as the Jets, who have a new general manager in Darren Mougey, a new head coach in Aaron Glenn and three new coordinators, all intent on adding talented new players to the roster for the offseason, preseason and regular season ahead.
As Mougey, holding his cards close to his vest, said of the Jets' recent sitdown among coaches, scouts and the analytics department to discuss their roster: "We felt really good about coming out of that week and just our preliminary plans heading into free agency and the draft. .... We will have a plan. I don't know how active or measured it will be, but we'll have a good plan."
Here are a few points worth previewing about the process the Jets and their 31 NFL brethren teams are about to embark upon.
Calendar
From Monday-Wednesday, teams are permitted to contact and enter contract negotiations with players who can become unrestricted free agents.
On Wednesday beginning at 4 p.m. ET, teams can sign new free agents and must submit qualifying offers to restricted free agents and exclusive-rights free agents.
Jets FA List
As previewed on newyorkjets.com last month, the Jets have 16 defensive players who can become free agents and 11 offensive and special teams players also with expiring contracts. Among that 27-player list, starters such as CB D.J. Reed, MLB Jamien Sherwood, TE Tyler Conklin, tackles Tyron Smith and Morgan Moses can test the free agent waters. The Jets have only two potential restricted FAs in S Tony Adams and LB Chazz Surratt and two exclusive-rights FAs in WR/ST Irvin Charles and OL Xavier Newman.
Franchise Tags
The deadline for designating franchise and transition players was Tuesday. Only two players received franchise tags from their teams — Cincinnati WR Tee Higgins and Kansas City G Trey Smith. QB Sam Darnold, the Jets' first-round draft choice in 2018, did not receive a tag from Minnesota after his strong 2024 season but the sides have been discussing a short-term deal to keep Darnold with the Vikings.
The Jets did not use their franchise or transition tag on any players this year.
Salary Cap
The NFL salary cap era began in 1994 when the first cap under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFLPA, intended to serve as an equalizer in response to free agency, was set at $34.6 million, Every year except two, the salary cap has risen. In 2010 there was no cap and in 2021 the cap decreased from $198.2M to $182.5M a year after the COVID epidemic.
This year's salary cap is the highest yet at $279.2 million per team, an increase of $23.8 million over the previous season.
The Jets' cap space as of Wednesday, according to overthecap.com, is $51,811,086, the 10th-most space in the league. "We feel good about the cap space," Mougey said. In the AFC East, the Patriots have the most cap space in the NFL at more than $127.4 million, with the Dolphins at No. 27, more than $1.6M OVER the cap, and the Bills at No. 30, more than $9.7M over the cap. All teams must be under the cap figure by Wednesday at 4 p.m.
FA Definitions
In the 2025 league year, players with three accrued seasons who have received a qualifying offer become restricted free agents when their contracts expire at the conclusion of the 2024 league year on Wednesday. Unrestricted free agents have completed four or more accrued seasons. Upon expiration of his 2024 contract, an unrestricted free agent is free to sign with any club with no draft-choice compensation owed to his old club.
A player gets an accrued season when he spends six or more regular-season games on a club's active/inactive, reserve/injured or reserve/physically unable to perform lists
