2015 RULES: Free Agency (UDFA)

[Goodell]

In recent seasons a team's budget for signing bonuses on undrafted free agents (UDFA) has come up. Here's an article from last year: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... g-bonuses/

To lure a class of undrafted free agents, the teams will have up to $80,362 each for signing bonuses.

Sounds like not a lot of reason for that in the NFL really (since everything goes against the cap) other than maybe veteran players negotiating that to limit the money spent on young UDFAs, or maybe owners putting limits upon themselves to avoid overspending there or creating cost certainty for that part of their roster.

We have a lot of competition here (probably our second-highest free agency activity) for signing UDFAs after our draft is over and that unselected draft pool is released onto the market.

Got me thinking that might be interesting to add that NFL signing bonus limit for UDFAs to our UDFA signing period. It would be a little more work to set that up, but not a ton of work as those guys are already marked as being in the draft pool from their recently completed draft. We'd have to track those signings separately, though, and not allow a team to bid on UDFAs that summer once they reach their SB limit.

I don't know that number would always be published, but if that was supported we could always assume something like an 80K budget and maybe grow that a little each year if an exact amount not known.

Cons might be that it over complicates things and requires building some additional tools. Some teams who stock up on UDFAs also wouldn't like a limitation put on them. That may also be a pro, though, if the league wants to spread those UDFAs around to more teams. It may create another game-within-a-game to close out the off-season prior to heading into a long summer of mostly inactivity until training camp comes around. Forcing teams to develop a gameplan and strategy for how to best use their 80K, whether it's all on the best UDFA or trying to get as many lower profile guys and play the numbers game. Which teams spend it all immediately on the biggest available names, and which teams save a little of that budget for later if an unsigned UDFA makes a name for himself as off-season workouts progress to be able to bid then when others already capped out can't?

Or it may be an unwanted complication here. Wanted to throw it out to see what most thought if it was something to explore further or not.

[robroach]

I've been thinking about this and I have a suggestion.

For undrafted free agents, keep salaries at a minimum and create a max signing bonus. For example, all undrafted free agents would sign a 3 year deal, with minimum salaries, and up to 300k for a signing bonus. You may end up with several teams matching the 300k. In this instance, you would utilize the waiver order or draft order. (This game doesn't do enough for the teams that are on the bottom, in my opinion, and this would help that). After the draft there will be a frenzy for UDFAs and this would bring about new strategies and create another free agent frenzy after the draft. It would also reward those teams who have kept themselves out of salary cap trouble. (This game doesn't punish teams in salary cap trouble enough, in my opinion, and this would help that).

[JonC]

Some GMs have started drafting their top UDFA players in round 6/7 of our draft to avoid people sniping/bidding up UDFA players afterword. If it's easily implemented, I think I'd like to give a signing bonus cap to teams. On the flip side, if there are going to be changes made to non-peak FA bidding, I think this may be able to wait a year or two.

[tino38]

Why a signing bonus cap? if teams want to go crazy and make huge guaranteed contracts based on the s/b I say more power to them. When it burns them they are stuck with all that dead money.

[Ben C.]

Why a signing bonus cap? if teams want to go crazy and make huge guaranteed contracts based on the s/b I say more power to them. When it burns them they are stuck with all that dead money.

I totally agree. If an UDFA is worth a huge signing bonus to one team, more power to that UDFA. The team is taking a big risk to get the player and there are already detriments built-in for when the player doesn't pan out.

[Knighty Knight]

Why a signing bonus cap? if teams want to go crazy and make huge guaranteed contracts based on the s/b I say more power to them. When it burns them they are stuck with all that dead money.

Because that's what they do in the NFL. Same reason we implement a lot of our rules.

[Goodell]

Right, not that we have to. There are some differences in our rules vs. NFL because of our simulated situation and because some of the NFL rules are very complex beyond what we can do here so in some of those cases we strive for more spirit of the rules or close to replicating those real choices.

Real NFL GMs have a cap on how much signing bonus they can give all their UDFAs. Someone mentioned drafting UDFAs from NFL, but for this discussion those wouldn't be considered UDFAs here if drafted here. If drafted here, they'd be a draft pick here not a free agent here. But for those eligible to be drafted but aren't drafted, the NFL puts a cap on how much you can put toward total signing bonuses for those players after the draft, and the question was if we also have that same rule as NFL teams for players who aren't selected in our draft.

It's not a core element and would require some work to implement, but isn't as challenging as some of the other things we've implemented.

I'd personally prefer to add it at some point, especially as it becomes more known to the public and discussed in articles like the link above as a limitation on NFL teams toward signing UDFAs that should be represented here also IMO toward our aim of a realistic experience and realistic options for team building. If it's not strongly supported now, probably won't add for now, but an issue I'll keep my eye on ahead as something that probably should at some point within the spirit and purpose for my founding the league and what I wanted to do with it to include those types of real elements.

[tino38]

Why a signing bonus cap? if teams want to go crazy and make huge guaranteed contracts based on the s/b I say more power to them. When it burns them they are stuck with all that dead money.

Because that's what they do in the NFL. Same reason we implement a lot of our rules.

There isn't a limit on the amount teams want to give for guaranteed money in the NFL. That's what we use our S/B as.

[Goodell]

Per articles and link above: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... g-bonuses/

To lure a class of undrafted free agents, the teams will have up to $80,362 each for signing bonuses.

For NFL teams, all the UDFAs they wish to sign after the draft must not have their total collective UDFA class signing bonuses total above $80,362 as a group. If you've signed several UDFAs and have just 5K left from that 80K, that's the most you could give to your next UDFA signing in the NFL per my understanding so that no team exceeds that signing bonus cap for UDFAs.

[Ulrich82]

The best part of that article is that it even admits that no one knows why this stupid rules exists. I'm guessing it was snuck into the CBA by some teams annoyed about using SB's to lure UDFAs.