The middle of March is perhaps the most important time on the NFL’s offseason calendar. Free agency begins and 2019 rosters begin to take shape with every team brimming with optimism that this will be their year.

With news coming out about releases and signings and trades, it’s important to keep a couple of dates in mind.

March 11 — 1:00 PM PT

This is when the legal tampering period opens. Teams may openly contact and negotiate with unrestricted-free-agents-to-be. Generally a ton of action happens in the days between the legal tampering period opening, and the official start of free agency.

It’s important to keep in mind that while generally the agreed-upon deals in this time period are signed once free agency opens, nothing is official on the 11th and 12th. Deals will be reported between players and teams, and contract terms may even leak. However, any agreement reached in this time period is not official.

March 13 — 1:00 PM PT

The new league year officially begins, and unrestricted free agents are free to make their deals official.

This is where teams will officially announce signings and the small grain of salt taken with previous reports can be put away. All 2018 contracts flip to 2019 at this time, so free agents are able to ink new deals.