2013 Off-Season Update

[Goodell]

Will players on the NFI (Non-Football Injury) list be PUP list eligible for us?
My understanding is it works the same way, player is ineligible for first 6 weeks. It seems like there are a lot more NFI designations this year.
Thanks commish!

Yeah, they'll probably all be labeled "PUP" though for simplicity. Really everything will be treated exactly like IR has been, other than more people will be eligible to be made inactive because of injury and that I'll re-activate some players if they come back later in reality upon request here.

[Goodell]

You may have noticed that we've made some players eligible for PUP and Reserve/Non-Football Injury lists. These are supposed to be guys on those lists in reality who cannot return until later in the season. I am mostly getting recent transactions for this as we aren't concerned with guys coming on/off PUP during training camp, just the ones going on now that'll miss much of the season ahead and cannot be activated until later. If there is someone who should also have that status, let me know and I'll check into it and add that eligibility as applicable if they're on those lists in reality now.

Suspended players and practice squads coming soon as the NFL finishes their last preseason games and NFL teams cut down to their 53 man rosters and assemble their practice squads soon.

[Goodell]

I mentioned practice squads coming soon once we get to the NFL's 53 man roster deadline and NFL practice squads start forming.

I've turned on the ability to cut players to your practice squad. However, like always those players have to first pass through waivers before going to your practice squad. Only 8 players can be on each practice squad, so if you have more than that, those after 8 will go right into free agency instead.

I haven't yet added the ability to pop guys off free agency onto practice squads. Wanted to give an announcement for that so people would know when that would happen. We'll say Tuesday morning at 8am ET.

But for now, teams can cut their own youngsters off their own roster to practice squad so long as nobody claims that player off waivers.

ALSO... I've turned off the Rule of 51 that kept guys 52 through 90 from counting against the salary cap during the off-season. This is the first time we've gone through that, so we'll see how things go and adjust ahead if needed to make this smoother. But teams with upwards of 90 players will now start having everyone count against their cap. We have to flip that switch sometime, and the time to do that was the NFL's cutdown deadline 8/31. But we give our teams through 9/5 to make their cuts, so I understand some teams will be over their caps as they make their cuts prior to 9/5 for the next handful of days. We normally give teams 48 hours to make that adjustment but I don't want to wait flipping that switch until two days before 9/5 to give teams more time to make final moves knowing their actual cap situation and not just the Rule of 51 as teams maneuver to their final 53. Let me know if any questions.

[RebelFan]

Is there any way you can unlock free agency while the final cuts are going on & lots of teams over the cap?

[Goodell]

Is there any way you can unlock free agency while the final cuts are going on & lots of teams over the cap?

Temporarily through this transition phase to the 9/5 deadline, especially as this is our first time going through this switch from 51 to full rosters. Ideally teams over their 53 (including myself) should be looking more at cutting than adding with deadlines fast approaching, but we can lift that restriction temporarily with this being a new shift that teams might not be aware of who might be in the middle of existing bidding wars. It'll still say no more bids if over cap, but will temporarily show the submit button also that should allow a bid to be submitted. Let me know if that doesn't work.

We'll observe what worked/didn't during this time and adjust for next year as we learn how to best go from Rule of 51 to all players count against the roster as we approach our cut down deadlines.

Although this is technically 8/31 ET, we jumped the gun a little bit as the NFL's deadline is later during the afternoon Saturday. I'll be out much of the day tomorrow, though, and wanted to get teams in the cut mode sooner than waiting until tomorrow night to flip that switch. Nobody's in any trouble or restricted at the moment with that switch, but everything must be at 53 and under cap for all teams by our deadline of 9/5 and wanted to get that started and get teams moving in that direction now that we've hit 8/31 and NFL teams are making their 53 man cuts.