Dictated by the need to squeeze in at least a modicum of vacation time before training camp begins, many NFL teams will shutter the offices this week as the league unofficially observes the calm before the storm.

Not too long after the final Fourth of July firecracker has popped, however, front offices will gear up for the offseason's most historically incendiary stretch, as negotiations commence with hundreds of unsigned draft selections.

It has become an annual rite of summer that only the bravest of rookies venture into the contract-signing waters before Independence Day, and this year has been no different.

	Slow Going
	As of Saturday, just 38 of 261 prospects from the 2002 draft consummated contract agreements. Here is a round-by-round breakdown of the accords: First Round -- 2 agreed Second -- 3 Third -- 5 Fourth -- 5 Fifth -- 6 Sixth -- 6 Seventh -- 11

Through Saturday, just 38 of 261 players selected in the 2002 lottery, roughly 15 percent of the draft class, had reached contract accords.

"Obviously, there is a lot of work to be done," said agent Tom Condon, who with partner Ken Kremer represents three first-round choices and two picks in the second round.

To this point just 10 of the top 100 players, including only two in the first round and three in the third stanza, have reached agreements. Exactly half of the league's franchises, 16 of the 32 teams, have yet to sign even a single draft pick. Only nine teams have signed more than one choice and just two, Arizona and Atlanta, have signed more than four.

Of the 38 prospects with agreements, 17 are in the sixth or seventh rounds, and all four of the most recent contracts filed with the NFL Management Council and the NFL Players Association were completed with players chosen in the final round.

But before anyone reaches for the panic button, before current inertia at the bargaining table is perceived as a crisis, these reminders: First, the signing numbers this spring aren't markedly different from the pace set in recent years. Second, because of a new extension to the collective bargaining agreement, there are apt to be fewer holdouts in 2002. And the negotiating fireworks of past years probably will be quieted as well.

That's because, despite much hand-wringing and public rhetoric over the sudden need to fit 12 gallons of negotiating water into a 10-gallon salary cap hat, representatives for both the teams and the players don't have much choice but to strike deals.

The reason: The rookie allocation pool, essentially a cap within a cap, is "flat" for 2002 and will be again in 2003. With no increase over the 2001 allocation level, most agents will be thrilled to get any kind of increase for their clients this year over corresponding deals completed last spring.

"A good agent is never going to just (acquiesce) and run up the white flag," said Hadley Engelhard, whose rookie clients include defensive tackle Ryan Sims, the first-round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs. "But there's only so much either side is going to be able to do this year. I mean, with the rookie pool being flat, it is what it is. You're going to have to be creative, but there are limits, so there's almost no sense waiting until mid-July to start negotiations. The landscape isn't going to change."

The problem is one of simple mathematics. Each team is assigned a rookie salary pool, the maximum amount of cap space a team can invest in its draft choice and its undrafted rookie free agents. The allocations are based on the number of selections a team made and where those picks fell, in terms of round and position within a round, for 2002. The rookie pools range from a high of $6.35 million (Houston Texans) to a low of $1.443 million (Miami Dolphins).

But the total cap room allocated league-wide for rookies is essentially unchanged. Now factor in a 7.6-percent rise in minimum rookie base salaries, from $209,000 in 2001 to $225,000 in 2002, and the prospect of trying to figure out how to achieve the typical overall increase in contracts within the context of a "flat" pool becomes a dicey matter.

"To say that (rookie pool) money is tight would be an incredible understatement," said the chief negotiator for one AFC team.

A few teams, surveyed by ESPN.com, might even take the unusual step of not signing one or two of their lower-round draft choices just to assure room for the higher choices. The Dallas Cowboys, who have a rookie pool allocation of $4.577 million, face an especially difficult time because the club in January signed former Stanford star Chad Hutchinson as a free agent.

Hutchinson, who played four seasons as a pitcher in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, received a $3.1 million signing bonus. The prorated portion of that, or $442,857, comes right off the top of the Dallas rookie pool, meaning everyone else gets squeezed.

Fact is, most agents won't even attempt to accomplish the characteristic 8-10 percent raise on rookie contracts, and will regard any increase as a victory of sorts. In such a climate, deals might actually be consummated quicker, because there is a palpable sense of resignation on both sides of the bargaining table.

Engelhard, for instance, is prepared to begin negotiation Sims' contract as soon as Chiefs vice president Dennis Thum is ready to sit down. The Manhattan-based agency Sportstars has a league-high 14 clients, and has already finished agreements for five of them, because senior agents Alan Herman and Brian Mackler feel nothing can be gained by delay.

Mackler and Herman already have signed off on contracts for a first-round pick, Bryan Thomas of the New York Jets, and second-rounder Eddie Freeman of Kansas City. They have demonstrated a sense of pragmatism merged with solid creativity. Example: In a poor market, they achieved an 8-percent increase in value on Thomas' contract over that of the player chosen in the No. 22 corresponding spot of the 2001 draft. Yet they did so while maintaining exactly the same cap charge, $1.04 million, as the 22nd player in '01.

"With the situation we're in," Mackler said, "why wait? It's better for your client to get the business end of things out of the way early so he has time to concentrate on getting ready for camp, on being mentally prepared for what lies ahead of him this summer."

Such a philosophy, unfortunately, hasn't necessarily pervaded the logic of most agents or team negotiators. Many representatives are still reluctant to finish contracts until deals around them fill in, essentially waiting for the "slotting" process to set the numbers. And teams are just as guilty, with some negotiators acknowledging they won't negotiate until July, when they feel the traditional deadline mentality creates a sense of urgency.

"The delays are the reality," allowed Jay Zygmunt, the president of football operations for the St. Louis Rams. "The names change but it's kind of the same every year."

Even in a year, apparently, when it doesn't have to be.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.