Glossary of NFL free agency terms

The free agency signing period begins at 4 p.m. Tuesday, when unrestricted free agents can sign with any team. This follows a three-day negotiating (legal tampering) period that began Saturday, during which teams can talk to the agents of prospective unrestricted free agents. A glossary of free agency terms:

Unrestricted free agent (UFA): A player with four or more accrued seasons whose contract has expired. The player can sign with any team, with no draft choice compensation owed to his former team through July 22 (or the first scheduled day of the first NFL training camp, whichever is later).

Restricted free agent (RFA): A player with three accrued seasons whose contract has expired. The player may be subject to a qualifying offer from his previous team.

Exclusive rights free agent: A player with no more than two accrued seasons whose contract has expired. The player can sign only with his prior team, assuming that team makes him a minimum qualifying offer.

Qualifying offer: A one-year salary tendered, or offered, to a current player. The salaries are predetermined by the collective bargaining agreement. By 4 p.m. Tuesday, teams must submit qualifying offers to the restricted free agents for whom they wish to retain the right of first refusal or get compensation should they not match another team's offer. RFAs may negotiate with other teams, but the original team has five days to match an offer sheet from another team, or can choose not to match and receive draft-pick compensation based on the level of its qualifying offer.

Accrued season: The NFL's standard for tracking players' service time, an accrued season consists of six or more regular-season games on a team's active roster, injured reserve or physically unable to perform lists.

Salary cap: The maximum a team can spend on its roster during a league year. The cap increased from $133 million last year to $143.3 million for 2015. This is a hard limit. When the league's 2015 business year begins March 10, teams have to count their top 51 salaries against the cap. But during the season they have to count the top 53 salaries, plus the practice squad and players on injured reserve.

Cap figure, or cap cost: The amount a player counts against a team's salary cap. The figure includes a player's base salary, incentive bonuses earned and a prorated portion of the player's signing bonus.

Franchise tag: Tool that allows teams to restrict the movement of one of their UFAs, albeit at a high, one-year price tag. Teams can use the tag on one player during a two-week period (Feb. 16-March 2 this year). The tagged player is guaranteed 110 percent of his previous year's salary or the average of the previous year's top five salaries at his position, whichever is greater.

Joseph Person

This story was originally published March 7, 2015 at 10:14 PM with the headline "Glossary of NFL free agency terms."