Contract extensions

[gmen43]

I remember this being discussed in the past but I was wondering why we cant lock up our young players before their contracts expire? I know there's the LTC and other tags but at least for a GM like me entering my 2nd year trying to rebuild I have a guy like carlos dunlap who is set to hit FA after this season, why am I not able to lock him up now, which is what NFL teams do?

[Goodell]

I remember this being discussed in the past but I was wondering why we cant lock up our young players before their contracts expire? I know there's the LTC and other tags but at least for a GM like me entering my 2nd year trying to rebuild I have a guy like carlos dunlap who is set to hit FA after this season, why am I not able to lock him up now, which is what NFL teams do?

There is no reason you couldn't, if you decided he was one of the players you wanted to LTC. It's not just pending free agents but also players with a year left still under contract that can get LTC. You don't get unlimited LTC, though.

There are those tools mentioned. Teams can't within the click of their mouse sign all 53 players to contract extensions, though. It's a strategy game. You have some of those options and have to decide which players get which of those tools. Teams have MASSIVE home field advantages, though, in terms of retaining their own players. Long-term contract extensions, franchise tags, transition tags, restricted free agency matching rights in certain cases, and UNLIMITED bidding toward keeping your own free agents while everyone else is limited to only 5 bids per day amongst hundreds of free agents on the market. If a team wants to keep a player and is willing to pay a market-driven price, they have unlimited opportunities and many options to do that.

If we had no limits at all on extensions, though, then the league would never have any players on the market and have zero free agency. Most find free agency and the draft the most fun part of the league. To say there will be no free agency anymore because everyone can extend any valuable player they want to contracts with no competition ever would make the league less competitive and take away one of the more fun aspects of it IMO.

Every year we have off-season rules discussions, though, for differing ideas and discussion.

[gmen43]

While I hear what you're saying, in the NFL there are plenty of pro bowlers that are FA every year. Obviously the main issue is that the players we are dealing with have no bargaining power, but I think that we should consider letting teams sign as many of their players to extensions-but have to pay a premium like with the LTC's. If we did this teams would still have to choose between resigning all their star players without being able to afford depth or allowing some star players to walk to retain depth players. Obviously the premium a team would have to pay a player- say dunlap- would have to be discussed but i think letting teams have unlimited LTC's wouldn't necessarily deprive the free agent market, as its not possible to sign all your star players- just like in the NFL.

[charlie813brown]

The point is, you CAN re-sign all your players, you have unlimited bids, but letting the market determine the value of players is a better and fairer system.