Officially, NFL teams cannot sign free agents until Tuesday at 4 p.m.

But there’s a twist this year. The league has created a three-day period where teams can talk and negotiate with agents. That starts at midnight tonight and extends to Tuesday. The catch? No deals can be made official, and teams are not permitted to talk to the actual players.

“You get to be able to talk to them [the agents] and get parameters so you’re not spending all that time on Tuesday at 4 o’clock doing that,” said Eagles general manager Howie Roseman. “At the same time, you’ve got to talk to the players. You’ve got to meet with the players, and you’ve got to get in front of them. You can’t do that until free agency kicks off. I think that’s when it kind of turns into high gear, but you save some of the background time.”

The three-day negotiating period for unrestricted free agents begins Saturday at midnight. (Details on what exactly that means here.) While nothing can become official until free agency officially open at 4 p.m. on March 12, there will be plenty of activity over the next few days. There is some news bubbling up already, in fact.

The latest:

Quarterback EJ Manuel will be doing a weekly diary here on Birds 24/7 as we count down to the draft. It should be a very cool feature and we’re excited to have him.

As it just so happens, his first entry comes on the heels of Mike Mayock declaring Manuel the second best quarterback  in this draft class,  moving him past Matt Barkley. That’s where we started the Q&A:

Arizona quarterback Matt Scott broke a little news following his Pro Day, telling reporters that he will be meeting with the Eagles on Monday.

The Eagles will be the first NFL team he visits, according to the Arizona Daily Star. The Chargers, Cardinals and Bills are also apparently showing some interest.

The Chip Kelly quarterback debate rages on.

The question has remained the same for weeks now: Is Kelly tied to Michael Vick, or will Nick Foles get a legitimate shot at competing for the starting job?

Kelly and the Eagles re-structured Vick’s contract this offseason and decided to bring him back on a one-year deal. But the door for Foles remains at least slightly open after reports indicated the Eagles told Andy Reid and the Chiefs that they were not interested in dealing the second-year quarterback.

In a Yahoo Sports column, Greg Cosell of NFL Films weighed in with his opinion after studying Oregon’s offense.

Every Thursday we select a few of your Twitter questions and provide the long-form answers they deserve. For a chance to have your question published on Birds 24/7, send it to @Tim_McManus.

The Eagles have dropped not-so-subtle hints about a scheme change all offseason long.

Chip Kelly has talked about preferring a 3-4. And Howie Roseman has discussed the versatility of specific players like Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham.

But one position the Eagles likely will have to address in the coming months is nose tackle.

Here’s a look at what the team might be looking for out of its nose tackle, along with some free-agent options.

The Eagles’ primary objective in free agency will be to target young talent at need positions.

But there’s a secondary factor at work too: building the kind of culture that Chip Kelly is looking to establish.

“You’re never trying to use the word rebuilding,” Howie Roseman told Birds 24/7 on Wednesday. “That equates to the fact that we’re not trying to win every year. And we’re always trying to win. We want to build it the right way. We want to do the right things so that we can compete for a long time.

“On that same token… there are certain players that no matter what the age is, they set the right example, they do the right thing. As you’re building a culture, they help carry that culture forward. That’s important stuff.”

Dashon Goldson stated his desire to return to San Francisco in a recent interview with Sirius XM, but allowed that there “hasn’t been much talk” of a new deal with the Niners as of yet. Free agency is just six days away.

“Hopefully something picks up and if they [don’t], I will be interested in what other teams would have to say,” Goldson said, adding that he would be open to playing “pretty much anywhere.”

Several stars would have to align for him to end up in Philadelphia.

When the summer of 2011 came around, the Eagles’ decision-makers felt they were close.

The team was coming off a 10-6 season in which it suffered a 21-16 loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers in the wild-card round. The previous year, the Eagles won 11 games. And in 2008, they made the NFC championship.

Major moves were made (Nnamdi Asomugha, Jason Babin, etc.) to fill in the gaps. And as we know, those moves didn’t work out. The Eagles went 12-20 the next two seasons, Andy Reid was fired, Chip Kelly was hired, and well, here we are.

Now, with free agency just six days away, the question has to be asked: How will the disastrous decisions from two summers ago affect the Eagles going forward?

“For us to not look back and see what happened at that time and why it happened… we’ve spent a lot of time doing that since Coach [Kelly] has gotten here – about where we were in our program. And it’s very different than where we’re at now,” general manager Howie Roseman said during an interview with Birds 24/7.

From Dashon Goldson to Darrelle Revis to Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, here’s a roundup of what the national media are saying about the Eagles this week.

Curry has been focusing on footwork and drops in the event that the new coaching staff opts for a version of the 3-4 and moves him to outside linebacker. Like Brandon Graham, Curry played some linebacker in high school before switching to defensive end. In his first couple seasons at Marshall the Thundering Herd ran a 3-4 and he was asked to drop into coverage some, he said.

There is some familiarity with playing in space. And this isn’t exactly a crash course, as Curry has has been readying himself for a potential position change for a while now.

The Eagles added a fifth quarterback to their roster today, officially signing G.J. Kinne.

After playing his college ball at Tulsa, Kinne spent part of last offseason with the New York Jets before moving on to the Omaha Nighthawks of the UFL. He then joined the San Antonio Talons of the Arena Football League.

A look at what Chip Kelly’s history with quarterbacks at Oregon might tell us about the Eagles’ decision to hang on to Nick Foles.

We’ve started to preview free agency in the past few days with breakdowns of the cornerbacks and the safeties.

And we’ll continue to look at other positions the rest of the week. But for now, here’s a peek at the Eagles’ own pending free agents, with some thoughts on who could be back.