NEXT year's big-name free agents won't need to tell their managers to show me the money.

 

This, of course, was the catch-cry of fictional Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Rod Tidwell in the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire.

 

When Tidwell made this demand to his manager, Maguire, he had one year left on his existing contract and was desperately seeking a lucrative long-term deal that would set him up for life after gridiron.

 

Tidwell eventually gets his money – an $11.2 million, four-year contract with the Cardinals – but not before a drawn-out negotiation in which Maguire earns his agent's commission 10 times over.

 

Prospective 2015 free agents such as Patrick Dangerfield, Tom Hawkins and Trent Cotchin can rest assured they will be shown the money without any such fight. By their own clubs. And by rival clubs in even larger amounts.

 

Melbourne has already kicked off the chase with its bid to lure Dangerfield from Adelaide in the trade period.

 

The Demons are believed to have dangled picks No.2 and No.3 in front of the Crows, but Adelaide was understandably not prepared to let its biggest star go.

 

The Crows are fully aware that if Dangerfield leaves as a free agent at the end of next season the most they can hope for is one first-round pick as compensation. If they make the finals, that pick that will come at No.12 at the earliest.

 

It is now up to Adelaide to convince Dangerfield over the next year that his future lies at West Lakes under new coach Phil Walsh.

 

The former Geelong Falcon will be a restricted free agent too, so the Crows will have the right to keep him by matching any rival offer.

 

But in an environment where a 19-year-old forward with one AFL season under his belt can attract a seven-year, $6 million contract, those offers are sure to be extravagant – in the Buddy and 'Boydy' sense of the word.

 

And in free agency's three-year existence, no club has kept a restricted free agent by matching a rival offer.

 

The Crows will be hoping they can re-sign Dangerfield well before they have to decide whether to match a multi-million dollar offer, most likely from a Victorian club.

 

Especially when their star spearhead Taylor Walker is also set to become a free agent next season and just as likely to attract juicy rival offers, albeit not ones in the same stratosphere as Dangerfield.

 

The Crows are also going to have to find enough salary cap room to keep other prospective free agents such as Richard Douglas satisfied, along with star midfielder Rory Sloane, who comes out of contract in 2015 but is one year shy of qualifying for free agency.

 

Adelaide is not the only club in free agency's crosshairs next year.

 

The club-by-club list below contains a small selection of the players who can field free agency offers next year.

 

The managers of players such as Hawkins, Cotchin, Robbie Gray, Alex Rance, Scott Selwood and Jack Steven will be swamped with offers.

 

But history tells us some of these players won't be on the AFL's official free agency list when it's released early next year.

 

When AFL.com.au released its preliminary list of 2014's free agents in December last year, it contained 70 players.

 

That number had shrunk to 57 by the time the AFL released its official list in March, with just five of those players (Jarrad Waite, Shaun Higgins, James Frawley, Nick Malceski and James Gwilt) joining new clubs in the recent free agency period. And Gwilt had been told by St Kilda that he would be delisted before he was picked up by Essendon.

 

Already, Gray, Selwood and Melbourne captain Nathan Jones are understood to be in advanced contract talks with their clubs aimed at taking them off the free agency market.

 

Nonetheless, next year shapes as a nervous one for clubs.

 

And they won't need a call from Jerry Maguire to tell them they need to show their free agents the money.

 

Patrick Dangerfield

Richard Douglas

Taylor Walker

 

Jed Adcock

Matthew Leuenberger

 

Matthew Kreuzer

 

Brent Macaffer

 

Brent Stanton

Tom Bellchambers

 

Michael Johnson

Paul Duffield

 

Tom Hawkins

Andrew Mackie

Mathew Stokes

 

 

Matthew Suckling

 

Colin Garland

Nathan Jones

 

Andrew Swallow

Robbie Tarrant

 

Robbie Gray

Matthew Lobbe

 

Trent Cotchin

Alex Rance

 

Sam Gilbert

Jack Steven

 

Scott Selwood