Ok, I would like to discuss this in the offseason, so I wanted to make a post.
If we are going to follow reality and guarantee contracts (which I am against, because it's not realistic)... everyone that is on a roster needs a grade. No more N/A. I have guys that I thought might end up on teams in real life, but didn't. So, they get no grade. But, I can't cut them, or I have to pay their entire salary. If it's a body, we need to give them a grade. I would say that every player has a minimum of 60 when it comes to grades.
Simply because they're not playing in real life, doesn't mean they couldn't at the least fill a spot. Instead, they get a big fat zero.
Rules discussion
Re: Rules discussion
Certainly both issues could be discussed toward next year changes.
We added the guaranteed contracts, though, because that was a REAL issue coming up in the NFL for teams deciding whether to keep veterans on the roster or not due to them being guaranteed that season if they were on the original roster. We incorporated that because it was happening in reality and a couple of high profile cases at the time where that issue was being mentioned about whether some veterans would make the initial 53 or perhaps be cut instead then added after the season started to avoid those guarantees in reality. Real GMs dealing with that, the majority here voted for us to deal with that also.
When grades factor into OL/F7/SEC it should give a "1.0" for empty or ungraded spots as a default for a low level backup. If it doesn't do that exactly perfectly in the script, I manually do a search for 0.0 grades on my pre-sim matchup check and try replace them with a 1.0 to enter in a new calculated average (as well as adjusting some team cases I am alerted to if not sure it's calculating correctly for them).
Don't know if we should just make-up a madden grade for someone who doesn't have one, but it's debatable whether "1.0" should be the default value used for empty spots or not certainly. There are a slew of players on NFL rosters right now with grades BELOW 60 on Madden, so hard for me to think guys sitting unemployed should be graded higher than those in the game getting Madden scores now, where 1.0 was intended to give them some value anyway, but perhaps too low and that could be looked at.
Some of that intended to be penalty for not having quality depth (as this is primarily a GM competition about who can build the most complete 53 man roster overall within salary cap restrictions). Some players on the low end of madden scores are already down close to 2.0, so at the time a 1.0 for having no active NFL player worthy of a madden grade for that spot seemed reasonable. I think it's been that way for a long while so not sure how much discussion originally on those cases or if much disagreement on that.
The other thing that helps in cases of teams having low grade averages due to missing players or ungraded players is the max caps. Even if the best team in sim football with the best grades goes up against the worst grades with all empty spots, there are caps on just how powerful grades exclusively alone can be. They aren't everything. They boost or hurt game updates, but within a pre-determined reasonable range where real performance still matters but is adjusted just a bit positively or negatively depending upon team grade strengths.
Should empty spots or ungraded players be 2.0 (or whatever) toward the area averages instead of 1.0? Perhaps. Doesn't always seem like a huge difference when I re-calculate in those instances where it typically tends to add .1 to the total recalculated average going from 0 to 1 for a zero player (unless it's a lot of players with no grade then perhaps those .1s could add up), but that's certainly something that could be looked at if most want to change that in future rules discussions.
We added the guaranteed contracts, though, because that was a REAL issue coming up in the NFL for teams deciding whether to keep veterans on the roster or not due to them being guaranteed that season if they were on the original roster. We incorporated that because it was happening in reality and a couple of high profile cases at the time where that issue was being mentioned about whether some veterans would make the initial 53 or perhaps be cut instead then added after the season started to avoid those guarantees in reality. Real GMs dealing with that, the majority here voted for us to deal with that also.
When grades factor into OL/F7/SEC it should give a "1.0" for empty or ungraded spots as a default for a low level backup. If it doesn't do that exactly perfectly in the script, I manually do a search for 0.0 grades on my pre-sim matchup check and try replace them with a 1.0 to enter in a new calculated average (as well as adjusting some team cases I am alerted to if not sure it's calculating correctly for them).
Don't know if we should just make-up a madden grade for someone who doesn't have one, but it's debatable whether "1.0" should be the default value used for empty spots or not certainly. There are a slew of players on NFL rosters right now with grades BELOW 60 on Madden, so hard for me to think guys sitting unemployed should be graded higher than those in the game getting Madden scores now, where 1.0 was intended to give them some value anyway, but perhaps too low and that could be looked at.
Some of that intended to be penalty for not having quality depth (as this is primarily a GM competition about who can build the most complete 53 man roster overall within salary cap restrictions). Some players on the low end of madden scores are already down close to 2.0, so at the time a 1.0 for having no active NFL player worthy of a madden grade for that spot seemed reasonable. I think it's been that way for a long while so not sure how much discussion originally on those cases or if much disagreement on that.
The other thing that helps in cases of teams having low grade averages due to missing players or ungraded players is the max caps. Even if the best team in sim football with the best grades goes up against the worst grades with all empty spots, there are caps on just how powerful grades exclusively alone can be. They aren't everything. They boost or hurt game updates, but within a pre-determined reasonable range where real performance still matters but is adjusted just a bit positively or negatively depending upon team grade strengths.
Should empty spots or ungraded players be 2.0 (or whatever) toward the area averages instead of 1.0? Perhaps. Doesn't always seem like a huge difference when I re-calculate in those instances where it typically tends to add .1 to the total recalculated average going from 0 to 1 for a zero player (unless it's a lot of players with no grade then perhaps those .1s could add up), but that's certainly something that could be looked at if most want to change that in future rules discussions.
Official Statement from the Commissioner's Office
Re: Rules discussion
Ok, I see. Then my statement would be that the minimum number be raised.
At this point, having one player that doesn't have a grade, drops you by an incredible amount. We have very little flexibility during the season, and almost zero knowledge of who is actually going to end up on a team.
At this point, having one player that doesn't have a grade, drops you by an incredible amount. We have very little flexibility during the season, and almost zero knowledge of who is actually going to end up on a team.
Re: Rules discussion
Depending upon the situation, though. I can't speak from first hand knowledge, as I put myself into a tight cap situation my self personally and can't make a lot of in-season moves because didn't give myself room to do that, but in an ideal world teams probably in general should plan for having some cap space available going into a season to make moves as injuries and what not happen. I'm guilty of not doing that myself, though, but I think a good idea in general to encourage to have that flexibility.Jared A wrote:...We have very little flexibility during the season, and almost zero knowledge of who is actually going to end up on a team.
On that subject of future rule changes related to flexibility, probably going to suggest some additional measures for next year toward those ends to see what kind of off-season rule discussion support. One might be altering the borrowing so that a team couldn't borrow the full amount in the off-season and have none to borrow in-season (so having some borrowing room that just becomes available once season starts) and another perhaps allowing an additional restructuring when the season starts for teams that find themselves in need to in-season move where it's not as easy to create cap space once gamechecks start being signed.
Official Statement from the Commissioner's Office