The 1200 salary points cover both initial contracts after the talent acquisition draft and free agency. Any leftover salary points will be carried over to the second season at a rate of 1 salary point carried forward for every 2 salary points left over (i.e., half of them will disappear).

You should definitely not use all 1200 points on your first 53 players. I usually want 200 to 600 points going into free agency, depending on how many blue chippers I want to keep long term and how active I need to be in free agency.

Yes, you are not able to bid on free agents until you have your first 53 players under contract. HINT: 1 year contracts are free. If you aren't sure if a player is going to be a contributor, sign them to a one year contract. You will have some limited rights to the player in year 2 free agency.