Free Agent Bidding during Regular Season and Late Off-Season

[Goodell]

Perhaps there is a way to have bidder hidden until salary exceeds a certain level (ie above $2m or some agreed upon figure). That would solve the big FA discussion.

We have about 1/3 wanting no anonymous bidding, 1/3 wanting it sometimes, and 1/3 wanting it always. So I think enough support to look at some anonymous bidding options. Before I make another poll further into those specific details, let me know if any suggestions first.

- Always anonymous for everybody always, even big name free agents.

- Public during March/April big free agency, all anonymous during training camp and regular season.

- Only list pool of interested teams "visited" but not who is winning the bidding currently.

- Anonymous always if under $2M (or whatever) bid, but public if a high profile player above that salary.


The way it would probably go on the player bid page is that instead of listing ATL $2M and NYG $2.5M in the bid history it would just say Team A, Team B, Team A, Team C, Team D, Team A, etc. while it was meeting the anonymous criteria. Then once the player signed, the real team announced.

We also have to think about whether I have it stop showing the number of bids left per team on the individual team pages (or just showing to the GM owner but nobody else), or if we want to keep the number of bids available known to all as we have before as an important part of the strategy.

So reply with any suggestions and I'll work the specifics into a more detailed poll this week about how we'd exactly work in anonymous bidding perhaps this regular season.

Thanks

[Michael D.]

I like Sooner's idea of once it goes over a certain amount ($2mill or whatever) everyone should be able to see the bid because we do at least have some idea of who is interested as you get into the starters and the more high profile players.

[RyanM]

If we're trying to keep this as close to reality then it should all anonymous all the time. Nobody knows what other teams are bidding on a player when FA occurs IRL.

[Ben C.]

I think it is reasonable to know which teams are bidding, but maybe less realistic to know the terms of their bids. Perhaps a solution could be to have a list of teams that are bidding and what the current bid is, but have no way of knowing who is still bidding or what they have bid.

Example:
RB Ryan Grant
Current Bid: 3 year, $1,000,000 salary, $5,000,000 signing bonus
Teams visited (bidding): ARI, NYG, DAL

In the real world I think we have information about where players have visited, regardless of the skill of the player, the amount of the contract or the time of the year. (we even know when players fail physicals or try-outs). We don't have terms of contract offers until a contract is in place. This is the public's view.

It is realistic to believe that the information available to GMs may be what teams the player has visited and generally what the player's current highest offer is (otherwise how would the GM give a higher offer?).

[Goodell]

If we're trying to keep this as close to reality then it should all anonymous all the time. Nobody knows what other teams are bidding on a player when FA occurs IRL.

I think especially for high profile players which teams they are visiting as they travel around the country in highly publicized visits, there is some general public information as to the teams interested and what kind of money we might be talking about for a star. Behind the scenes, I think agents really try to play one team against another also, so you know you are in a bidding war with the Falcons for this RB because his agent keeps telling you to raise your offer or he's going to go with what the Falcons are offering more.

That's another option we can add to the list (looking for suggestions for different ways, so thanks) where it lists the real teams who have bid but not who is leading, and only the team in the lead would know for sure who has the highest now. In some cases it might be obvious if there are a couple teams for a long while in the pool and then a new team suddenly gets added because they wouldn't be added unless they topped the others, but still could be an interesting way of adding some anonymous elements to the bidding. I'll add it to the list when we do a full poll on detailed options if I'm understanding it correctly.

[Ben C.]

In some cases it might be obvious if there are a couple teams for a long while in the pool and then a new team suddenly gets added because they wouldn't be added unless they topped the others, but still could be an interesting way of adding some anonymous elements to the bidding. I'll add it to the list when we do a full poll on detailed options if I'm understanding it correctly.

Could also have two random teams added to the list from the beginning. In other words, when the first bid is placed the computer selects two teams at random to add to the teams visited list. Then each team that was selected randomly would still have it limited to 2 possible bidders.