We may finally start to see some of the high-profile free agents still on the market land with new teams. As Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network reports (via Twitter), the league has lifted its prohibition on free agent tryouts. Unsigned players can now come into a team’s facility to be fully evaluated.

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the NFL to ban clubs from hosting free agents, though an exception was recently made for players to take a physical with an interested team (as with Mike Daniels and the Bengals, for instance). Now, however, players like Jadeveon Clowney and Everson Griffen, who have languished on the open market, can visit a facility to try and alleviate any concerns teams might have about them.

Per Pelissero, there are a number of safety precautions the league is putting in place (Twitter link). All signed players must undergo COVID-19 entry screening, and street free agents must test negative three consecutive times before participating in team activities. Players acquired from another club (e.g., a player who had been cut the previous day) must test negative two consecutive times. All tests will be 24 hours apart.

Signed players may participate in virtual meetings while awaiting test results, and teams will receive a roster exemption for a player acquired from another club until his second negative tests comes back (Twitter link via Pelissero). All new players will be tested for six consecutive days after arriving at the facility.

So there are still a number of hoops for FAs and other new players to jump through, but this is a key development that will shift free agent activity to a much more familiar format.

Not long after the Big Ten revealed it would try spring football to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pac-12 will follow suit. The conference will soon announce it will not play football this fall, Stadium’s Brett McMurphy reports (on Twitter).

The expectation is the Pac-12 will also attempt a spring season, though The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman tweets the conference’s medical experts are not currently optimistic college football will be viable then either. Regardless, Tuesday now serves as one of the most pivotal days in NCAA history.

Two of the Power 5 conferences have declared they are done for 2020, leaving the ACC, Big 12 and SEC left to decide when their seasons will occur (if they are to occur). The Pac-12 had discussed a spring-season scenario for several weeks. Should the latter three leagues decide to go ahead with fall slates — as each did upon releasing schedules just days ago — a historic split season would stand to take place.

Pac-12 draft prospects are set to join their Big Ten brethren, however, with most surely set to skip a spring season in order to avoid risk. In between the Big Ten and Pac-12 season postponements, NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo noted the NFL remained on track to hold its draft in late April (video link).

With two Power 5 leagues now on track to try spring football, that will put the NFL to a test. Teams will want as much intel on prospects as possible, so it would behoove the league to postpone the draft until the end of the new spring seasons. The NFL can delay its draft until June 2, per the CBA. Any later and another NFL-NFLPA bargaining session would need to commence.

The rumors about the Big Ten nixing fall football preceded the conference following through with a landmark change. One week after it finalized a fall 2020 schedule, the conference voted to not play that slate, David Jesse, Chris Solari and Chris Thomas of the Detroit Free Press report. The Big Ten announced the decision Tuesday.

While the Big Ten has become the first of the Power 5 conferences to call off football in 2020, it plans to pursue a spring football season, NJ.com’s James Kratch reports. This would be an axis-shifting move, though other smaller conferences have put such plans in place already.

The NFL has yet to budge on its annual draft window. Earlier this summer, the league was not expected to move the draft from its traditional late-April date. But with the Big Ten producing dozens of draftees annually, the NFL will now have a dilemma.

One of the major conferences’ seasons may not be completed by the time the draft happens — a scenario that has not occurred since the 1960s. The CBA allows the NFL the power to push the draft back as far as June 2. Any additional delay would require another NFL-NFLPA bargaining session.

A few first-round prospects from Big Ten schools have opted out of the season to prepare for the draft. Tuesday’s announcement will induce many others to do so, with a spring season presenting immense risk to players on track to play NFL football in fall 2021. Prospects who were hoping to use the 2020 season as a springboard to better draft status may also be forced to skip a spring slate.

Other college conferences may follow the Big Ten’s lead. The Pac-12 was the second league to announce it would only play conference games. With COVID-19 still wreaking havoc on the NCAA landscape, it would certainly not be a surprise to see the Pac-12 — which also discussed a spring setup earlier this summer — follow the Big Ten in postponing its season. This would put the ACC, Big 12 and SEC to seminal decisions.

As far as the coronavirus-reshaped 2020 NFL season, that remains on course. While the Big Ten pulling the plug on fall football could be interpreted as an ominous sign for the league, the NFL has fewer obstacles to navigate than college conferences en route to Week 1.