NFL free agency in full swing

With the NFL's uncapped year now underway and the league's impending lockout closing in upon us, here's a sampling of things you should know and expect to see in the coming months:

-- Expect the league's top-flight unrestricted free agents -- Karlos Dansby, Julius Peppers and the like -- to get paid top dollar, while the second- and third-tier players to perhaps be squeezed out of good money. Despite the lack of a salary cap, owners will continue to act as if they're still operating under one. Want proof? Take a look at the Washington Redskins, who cut 10 players this past week.

-- Here's the deal with restricted free agents: Under the old collective bargaining agreement, veterans needed only to reach the end of their fourth season before they could become unrestricted free agents. But after the the owners opted out in 2008, the threshold became six years. Now, there's a huge pool of fourth- and fifth-year players steaming about their restricted status. The group is 212-deep, and not one has signed an extension since the end of the season, according to The Boston Globe. And because interested parties will likely have to offer not only a sizeable contract but compensatory draft picks as well for restricted free agents, the pool could remain pretty deep for a while.

-- Obviously, with no salary cap in place, there's fear the NFL this season could morph into what MLB looks like. The richest and bravest may take a page out of the playbook of the New York Yankees by buying championships with their wallets. The poor and the inactive (such as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), however, could be content with a slash-and-burn policy as they look to lessen their investments before Lockout Day 2011 approaches.

-- With that said, don't expect the biggest and baddest of the NFL to get any more fearsome. The top eight teams from last season have restrictions that "limit their ability to sign unrestricted free agents and curb the amount they are allowed to pay those players," according to a Reuters article. In other words, the rich probably won't get any richer via free agency.

-- There could be more blockbuster trades than usual. With no salary cap ramifications for multi-player swaps, trades could come in vogue this offseason. We already saw it with ex-Cardinal wide receiver Anquan Boldin's move to Baltimore, and we should see it a few more times before preseason kicks off. The reasons are both financial and economical. First, teams don't have to worry about absorbing a player's full contract in one year, because they obviously can't be penalized under a nonexistent salary cap. Secondly, with a shallow listing of unrestricted free agents up for grabs, trades allow for an immediate upgrade in talent.

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