2013 Off-Season Update

[Goodell]

Trades have been turned back on. Let me know if any problems.

[JonC]

Trades have been turned back on. Let me know if any problems.

Awesome news. Thanks so much for all your tireless work.

[Goodell]

If you haven't tagged anyone and still want to franchise/transition a pending free agent, today is the last day. As mentioned previously...

Free agency will start Monday, April 8th at 8AM ET.

[Do Well]

Hey Commish,
When I hit the trade window it seems to "not find" the player i wish to trade for. Also the options to tag/RFA/UFA/LTC isnt showing up for me either. Let me know if its an issue or im just kind of being an idiot over here and not paying attention lol.

[Goodell]

Free agency will start Monday, April 8th at 8AM ET.

For those who are new, you don't have to get in your bids right at 8am ET. You have all day. There are probably different opinions on whether it is better to get in your bids early or late. You may want to get in bids for your own UFAs early as those are unlimited, but once you use a bid on another UFA/RFA/tagged player you lose one of your 5 per day for 24 hours. It will renew after 24 hours on the next day. So if you put in your 5 bids immediately, you may see them get countered quickly and not be able to do anything about it for 24 hours until your bids renew.

A player is signed once he's gone 24 hours without any counter offers, so you'll want to keep an eye on players you're interested in to have a bid available before they are signed.

If a player is RFA or tagged, their original team has matching rights and can match any offer they get once they are signed. If you have your own tagged or RFA guys, you cannot bid on them you just have to wait til they sign and then decide to match or not.

If you're bidding on a tagged player, there are certain rules to that. For franchise players, you have to have 2 first rounders you're willing to give up if the original team doesn't match. One of the first rounders must be from this upcoming draft and the other either this draft or next year's draft. If you have multiple first rounders, the default is your own original draft picks. You cannot place more franchise bids into a system at once than you have first rounders to cover the potential compensation. Bids on tagged players at minimum have to be 75% of the NFL's franchise/transition value for that position with the balance in SB.

If you bid on RFAs, you must be willing to part with their set level of compensation (either 1st, 2nd or original round draft pick) if the offer not matched. If a player is on original draft pick compensation, it's all based upon NFL draft round. If you do not have the compensation required, we will take the next highest draft pick you do have for compensation.

To put in a counter offer if a player already has bids, you have to raise either the salary or roster/signing bonus at least 5%. Annual salary is not guaranteed, but any signing bonus entered is money you'll end up paying one way or another no matter what and will never transfer to any other team than his signing team, so if you enter a huge signing bonus know that if you need/want to cut/trade that player before his contract is up that you're going to have a cap hit for that whether it's all eventually used up prorated every year he's on your team through the end of the deal or if it accellerates in a cap hit when removed.

If you haven't done this before, might be a good idea to watch the market develop a little tomorrow before leaping into using all your bids and space them out a little to ensure you don't get caught without a bid when you need one before players you wanted to bid on sign elsewhere if you're caught without any bids left that day to counter.

[Goodell]

We had a poll this off-season about having NFL rules for cap/roster management during the off-season with support for the 90 roster limit during the off-season with the NFL's Rule of 51 where only the top 51 cap numbers count against your cap before the regular season. That means players 52-90 (if you have that many) won't count against the cap during the off-season.

One of the reasons we didn't institute this before was because it can be a little more confusing. I've added some figures at the bottom of your team roster page which mentions the full roster total as well as the official 51 man roster total toward the cap that will count now until the season starts. I'll try to add further details there (like top 53) and integrate those more into decision making pages as we can. I'm also hoping to have a link to a page listing all players by cap numbers in sequential order down to top 51 so it's a little easier to tell if a new addition through trade/signing will push others down and how that'll effect your Rule of 51 cap figure. For now there is a cap amount listed (Salary+RB+SB/yr) that represents the 51st spot so any additions above that figure would adjust your available cap and anything below that should not during the off-season.

I wanted to get this in before new players added through free agency signings. Let me know if any questions.

[Goodell]

Free agency runs continuously 24/7 every day all the time from when we started until the end of the regular season.

However, we have to have a time limit on bids for tagged or restricted free agents as their compensation typically involves draft picks from this upcoming draft that's fast approaching. To ensure plenty of time for bidding wars to be sored out in time and picks to be transfered after 48 hours of matching consideration, we'll set this deadline:

Sunday, April 21st is the last day to place a bid on a tagged or restricted free agent.

At that point, we'll also turn off all existing team relationships to unrestricted free agents (UFA) so if still have any UFAs on the market you want to sign with unlimited bidding, you'll have about a week to take advantage of that before all free agents left are unassociated with any team and available to all at equal advantage as free agents on the market. After that time, the compensatory draft pick counters on the league homepages will also be frozen since no more team-associated UFAs to be lost/gained.

Let me know if any questions, but essentially this is the last week to wrap up any big free agency moves as we gear up for the draft as soon as a week after that deadline.

[Goodell]

UNSIGNED TAGGED PLAYERS:
For teams who had tagged players who went without offersheet bids during the main part of free agency, you have options to offer those players extensions similar to the options you had if they were exclusive franchise tags.

For teams in that situation, you should see a form at the bottom of your team roster that looks similar to your choices for tag extensions prior to free agency.

Teams have until June 1st to make a decision or the player will remain on a 1-year deal at the tag level (or 120% of 2012 salary whichever is higher - I'll have to go back and check those that aren't already at that 120% level).

Players that are tagged can still be traded, and their new team also can make that extension decision so long as they do it prior to June 1st.

We usually post those decisions on a message board in past years, but we've repurposed the exclusive tag extension signings for this purpose where you can choose and do it automatically from your team roster at any time before June 1st.

Send me a PM if you attempt to do this and there is a problem. Thanks

DRAFT:
Also remember the college draft starts Sunday April 28th for us and will go 4 days. Check your team draft link to view your pick windows and add player(s) to your draft queue.

[Goodell]

June 1st is right around the corner this Saturday.

Once we hit June, these things will happen:

- Any Roster Bonus for a player on your team at that time will be paid at that time. It won't change your current salary cap figures, but those charges will become permanent for this year at that time. Even if you cut or trade that player later, if they had a roster bonus (RB on the roster page) that roster bonus amount will not transfer with the player off your roster. That roster bonus will stay against your current year cap no matter what. Cut/trade the player later and his salary will go, but you'll have a cap hit remaining for 2013 roster bonus paid that sticks. So check your team roster for players with roster bonuses (RB) and give that consideration.

- There will be unlimited cap hit splits for cuts/trades after June 1st. During this off-season, you were limited to two exemptions, but once it's June 1st you can split any cap hit as often as you want over 2 years if desired.

- Teams with franchise tagged players who didn't receive any offers in free agency have the choice of giving those players a contract extension. Those options are at the bottom of your team roster page for the few teams that applies (I've contacted those teams directly via PM). If you don't accept a franchise tag extension before June 1st, that player will automatically have a 1-year contract at either the franchise tag value for his position or 120% of last year's salary whichever is higher.

[Onyxgem]

Any idea when we can start trading 2015 picks?