Putting a couple free agency polls together based upon suggestions most supported, trying to zero in on what shifts (if any) we'll make to free agency to begin working on those now to be ready come April.
Peak free agency would be the time of the biggest name signings once we start a new league year. We'll include UDFA signings as part of that time period and anything up to June 1st would be peak time. Non-peak free agency is anything after June 1st (as an important date we make other changes anyway already) that happens during training camps through all season.
Pending continuing support in other polls, all the options above would all additionally include a $435K min for any 1 year deal with SB needed for longer. Veteran minimums (745K) applies for veteran deals longer than 1 year.
This would mostly be seeing if most want to keep free agency the same all year (as it is now) or adjust it for non-peak bidding where more issues can sometimes come up related to jumping on other team's research/bids.
The free first bidder (limit 1 per day) was the most supported option of anther poll on free agency suggestions so added it to these choices (with or without for each). That would allow a team to place a bid on a player without any bids for free even if they've used up all their bids for the day but limit that to just one per day. That essentially gives teams 6 bids per day effectively so long as they wish to put in a new bid on a player without a bid that day (assuming that's workable within the programming).
2015 RULES: Free Agency (Peak/Non-Peak)
2015 RULES: Free Agency (Peak/Non-Peak)
Official Statement from the Commissioner's Office
Re: 2015 RULES: Free Agency (Peak/Non-Peak)
CONCLUSION: There's close to a 50/50 split here. The best approach might be to introduce some compromises in some of the areas that are most supported for change but make them slight changes initially to monitor the results for the future.
Instead of showing the EXACT time down to the minute that a player will be signed if no bids before then, we'll try to display a time that's more general there (to lessen some of the last moment bid frustrations) but still provide relevant information for bid decisions. The displayed time for signing will be more approximate than exact, rounded down to the nearest :10 minute interval (thinking 10 minute but subject to change as it's implemented before Monday and we'll provide update here). Instead of reporting that a signing will happen if no bids by 9:44 AM, it might say approximately 9:40. If you're a potential bidder you don't know exactly when the signing will happen but if you let it go past the approximate time without bidding, you could miss out. Unless someone notes the time manually every moment of the day here, there wouldn't be any waiting until the last minute ran down exactly to put in a bid if nobody else had so that might make for less personal bickering over very last moment bids. The time reported is generalized but still within a close enough range that it should give teams a good idea how to manage their daily bids still. Just wouldn't be exact down to the last minute time listed but something close to that rounded down to an approximate time to avoid the last moment conflicts. The whole idea of free agency is fair market-driven prices, not so much battles over a signing clock, so this may shift the focus a little away from clock games that frustrate some at this time.
Teams will always be able to see the exact times for their own bids, as they need to know when their 24 hours for a bid to be renewed comes up. You just wouldn't know when a pending signing by another team will exactly happen with a countdown to the signing minute, you'd just see an approximate time for another team's signing bid deadline.
After June 1st, we'll shift to non-peak free agency. Some of the other first-bidder advantages were not as supported in other polls/discussions, and most of the votes here were in favor of non-peak changes. We'll remove the "signing soon" links and URL after June 1st, and we'll not publish on the player list that a bid submitted after June 1st. However, if you click on a player to bid on them you'll see what you must bid if a counter required. In this case, teams wouldn't be able to wait and watch for players other teams research and bid, but would have to look up a player themselves at their own initiation. We may tweak that in the future after monitoring, as there's more that could be done in multiple ways, but this seems like a reasonable first attempt for the non-peak season that rewards teams placing first bids on players they've researched without attracting attention to that player by other teams that weren't interested before seeing someone else's bid. We'll let teams place those initial non-peak bids more discreetly. Of course other GMs here may also read newspapers and websites and search for that player and want to place bids themselves, but we won't advertise bids for players in the non-peak season. The only time a signing soon and list of players with bids will happen will be from the start of free agency until June 1st.
I'm going to try to upload as many players on NFL rosters now that aren't in our system yet tomorrow. For those missed or become available later in reality but aren't here yet, I know teams have asked for some advantage for "finding" players not in the system. Often I get multiple teams asking to add the same players, and really it's not so much a thing to reward but just a lack of time on my part to not already have them in there. And the league wants fair contracts at values more than creating rewards to under-market prices for first finders. However, teams shouldn't be put at a disadvantage just because a player not in the system yet. So we're going to try to institute a new system for adding players (and maybe updating their info) this year. If a player submitted apparently not in the system by search check, it'll temporarily add the player automatically and prompt me to double-check that, but the player would be in the system immediately for bidding. If I find the player shouldn't have been added afterall, any bids or signed contract would be stricken as invalid and voided. If a team frequently added players to the system using those new tools and often made mistakes in adding players that shouldn't have been, they'll likely be denied access to that after three strikes and you're out of being able to add players. That's not available yet, and probably a lower priority than getting free agency ready for Monday and the draft in early May, but hopefully this off-season for continued use ahead as it also lessens the work for the league with new players that should be added if teams add them to the system.
Instead of showing the EXACT time down to the minute that a player will be signed if no bids before then, we'll try to display a time that's more general there (to lessen some of the last moment bid frustrations) but still provide relevant information for bid decisions. The displayed time for signing will be more approximate than exact, rounded down to the nearest :10 minute interval (thinking 10 minute but subject to change as it's implemented before Monday and we'll provide update here). Instead of reporting that a signing will happen if no bids by 9:44 AM, it might say approximately 9:40. If you're a potential bidder you don't know exactly when the signing will happen but if you let it go past the approximate time without bidding, you could miss out. Unless someone notes the time manually every moment of the day here, there wouldn't be any waiting until the last minute ran down exactly to put in a bid if nobody else had so that might make for less personal bickering over very last moment bids. The time reported is generalized but still within a close enough range that it should give teams a good idea how to manage their daily bids still. Just wouldn't be exact down to the last minute time listed but something close to that rounded down to an approximate time to avoid the last moment conflicts. The whole idea of free agency is fair market-driven prices, not so much battles over a signing clock, so this may shift the focus a little away from clock games that frustrate some at this time.
Teams will always be able to see the exact times for their own bids, as they need to know when their 24 hours for a bid to be renewed comes up. You just wouldn't know when a pending signing by another team will exactly happen with a countdown to the signing minute, you'd just see an approximate time for another team's signing bid deadline.
After June 1st, we'll shift to non-peak free agency. Some of the other first-bidder advantages were not as supported in other polls/discussions, and most of the votes here were in favor of non-peak changes. We'll remove the "signing soon" links and URL after June 1st, and we'll not publish on the player list that a bid submitted after June 1st. However, if you click on a player to bid on them you'll see what you must bid if a counter required. In this case, teams wouldn't be able to wait and watch for players other teams research and bid, but would have to look up a player themselves at their own initiation. We may tweak that in the future after monitoring, as there's more that could be done in multiple ways, but this seems like a reasonable first attempt for the non-peak season that rewards teams placing first bids on players they've researched without attracting attention to that player by other teams that weren't interested before seeing someone else's bid. We'll let teams place those initial non-peak bids more discreetly. Of course other GMs here may also read newspapers and websites and search for that player and want to place bids themselves, but we won't advertise bids for players in the non-peak season. The only time a signing soon and list of players with bids will happen will be from the start of free agency until June 1st.
I'm going to try to upload as many players on NFL rosters now that aren't in our system yet tomorrow. For those missed or become available later in reality but aren't here yet, I know teams have asked for some advantage for "finding" players not in the system. Often I get multiple teams asking to add the same players, and really it's not so much a thing to reward but just a lack of time on my part to not already have them in there. And the league wants fair contracts at values more than creating rewards to under-market prices for first finders. However, teams shouldn't be put at a disadvantage just because a player not in the system yet. So we're going to try to institute a new system for adding players (and maybe updating their info) this year. If a player submitted apparently not in the system by search check, it'll temporarily add the player automatically and prompt me to double-check that, but the player would be in the system immediately for bidding. If I find the player shouldn't have been added afterall, any bids or signed contract would be stricken as invalid and voided. If a team frequently added players to the system using those new tools and often made mistakes in adding players that shouldn't have been, they'll likely be denied access to that after three strikes and you're out of being able to add players. That's not available yet, and probably a lower priority than getting free agency ready for Monday and the draft in early May, but hopefully this off-season for continued use ahead as it also lessens the work for the league with new players that should be added if teams add them to the system.
Official Statement from the Commissioner's Office