Roster size ?

[bbrown85]

I think the better question, how is the money situated if a player chooses to opt out? Are we on the hook for a one contract and signing bonus if that player chooses to remove himself from league play for the year. Also, what if the situation changes and said players come back mid season (ex. PUP List), will there be a prorated amount and will be grades be re-installed to original numbers if they are docked.

[Goodell]

I understand the opinion of those saying those who opt out shouldn’t be allowed to play. But if we keep it real to the NFL, those guys contracts must be extended an extra year like the real nfl. Shouldn’t be punished for losing a year of control since the real nfl teams aren’t being punished.

If people come across great articles about NFL opt-out specifics, that would be great. In particular the impact on their contracts, if any roster status list they are added to and salary cap impacts.

I didn't a little searching and found this in an article:

NFL rules allow for Pierce, as a high-risk opt out, to receive $350,000 and for his contract to toll to next season. NFL players who aren’t considered high risk can opt out and have their contracts toll and receive $150,000 but must pay the money back next year.

And this:
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/new ... 0to%202021.

The NFL season opt-out rules are simple. Anybody is free to decide not to play in 2020, and per multiple reports, the contracts for all players who opt out will toll to 2021.

NFL players who opt out for 2020 also will receive salary advances. Those who opt out for medical reasons because they are at high risk regarding COVID-19 will receive $350,000 for the season, and those who opt out voluntarily will receive $150,000 for the season. (Undrafted rookies who opt out voluntarily are not eligible to earn the $150,000 stipend.)

So Duvernay-Tardif, for example, will get the $150,000 salary advance since he opted out voluntarily, and his 2020 contract will toll to 2021. He was scheduled to earn $2.75 million this season, so he'll earn that (minus the $150,000) next year.

So to me from that, makes some common sense to also toll our contracts from opted-out players to 2021. Meaning if they signed a 3-year deal this off-season, you wouldn't lose a year but instead their 3-year deal would start next season instead of this season. I wouldn't think we'd need to worry ourselves with real world stipends or advanced money that the player has to pay back, although we could, but just adding minimal money one year and removing it the next zeroing out.

[Aftermath2531]

I don't think the players who opt out should get a pass and be allowed to play. How do we know how they will perform ? How do we know that they wouldn't have gotten injured. So if my stating OG is playing and gets injured I lose him but an OG who isn't playing is deemed healthy.

Larry
Minnesota AFFL

So where were you during the Antonio Brown or Leveon Bell grievances in previous years? Both sat at home on there couch all year with one holding out and the other out of the league all together. Remind me were they susceptible to injuries or were they scoring TD's all year here 100% healthy. In Browns case he was also boosting teams WR grades. At the very least these opt outs should be treated like we do NFL free agents here and knock there grade down a percentage.

[Aftermath2531]

If we choose to honor opt out players here then we need to be consistent across the board. By not allowing any player that is not on a NFL field to take part in a sim. This includes hold outs, opt outs, and NFL free agents. A player that opts out or holds out is ultimately a personal decision by a real life player not a sim player.

[dingo1414]

I am on the side of if the player opts out of the NFL, he opts out on FanGM.

[soonertf]

I don't like any player that isn't suiting up, being available for Sim league at 100%. Contract disputes are tricky because they differ from our league, but I would even lean toward not allowing them going forward either. I just don't see how someone not playing and risking injury or bad performance can be treated the same as players that are on the field. At the very least, I would suggest a 50% reduction on grades and would be 100% against using last year's averages for skill players. I wasn't a fan that Brown got to continue to play last year either. Just my two cents though. I'm not 100% sold we will even have a full football season, so it might not matter at the end of the day anyway!

[larry linke]

I don't think the players who opt out should get a pass and be allowed to play. How do we know how they will perform ? How do we know that they wouldn't have gotten injured. So if my stating OG is playing and gets injured I lose him but an OG who isn't playing is deemed healthy.

Larry
Minnesota AFFL

So where were you during the Antonio Brown or Leveon Bell grievances in previous years? Both sat at home on there couch all year with one holding out and the other out of the league all together. Remind me were they susceptible to injuries or were they scoring TD's all year here 100% healthy. In Browns case he was also boosting teams WR grades. At the very least these opt outs should be treated like we do NFL free agents here and knock there grade down a percentage.

I was in Florida, where were you ?

[Ben C.]

The NFL has granted opt-out procedures for players wishing not to take the health risk of playing. We have always strived to have our game be as similar to real life as possible, following NFL rules when it is easy to do so.

It is easy to follow this rule, so we should do it.

Hold outs are a discussion for another off-season and have no bearing on whether we follow the opt-out rules.

[Goodell]

The NFL has granted opt-out procedures for players wishing not to take the health risk of playing. We have always strived to have our game be as similar to real life as possible, following NFL rules when it is easy to do so.

It is easy to follow this rule, so we should do it.

Hold outs are a discussion for another off-season and have no bearing on whether we follow the opt-out rules.

EXACTLY.

RE: So where were you during the Antonio Brown...

I've become sick over Antonio Brown for many reasons (including hurting my roster, being griped about so much as a very rare odd situation, and breaking my fan heart as having drafted him here originally so following his whole career closely ending perhaps so disappointingly). But was he suspended? Was he on an official NFL list of some kind? Was he retired at the time last season? Was he out for injury on an injury list? The answer is no. Those are the things impacting player status in our rules. There is a world of thousands of players available at FanGM now who aren't on NFL rosters that any team can sign any time in free agency. You don't have to be signed to an NFL team to play here (although it certainly helps). We are NOT going to subjectively pick which players of exactly the SAME LEAGUE STATUS are treated differently from others players and exempt from those guidelines that apply to all.

Unsigned player X played some games during the season, got cut and is trying to get back in the NFL and our sim teams can certainly sign him if they'd like if they have hopes for him ahead, but another unsigned player Y of exactly the same status (isn't retired, isn't suspended, isn't hurt, is visiting NFL teams for workouts and possible signing) and we are going to treat him differently? NO.

I am not going to subjectively decide which players of the same status are different from other players. I an not going to suspend some players in sim world if they are not suspended in reality. I'm also not going to subjectively retire some players who aren't retired in reality. I do not decide a player's status by design. GMs can't bribe me to make decisions that help their teams and their players by my subjective decisions. The NFL decides status for the NFL, and we go by what the NFL says about a player's status. We go off real world lists and player availability statuses. Period.

Some would say it would be better if some ruler here subjectively made different calls than the NFL in select cases, and I can understand some of that, but just vigorously disagree and built the entire league to not be based around one sim commish or group of people deciding different custom rules. Wouldn't it be cool if we did this really weird thing that the NFL doesn't do but my fantasy team does? No. We go by NFL rules whenever humanly possible, not what some fan boys decided in their basement would be fun. There are other leagues for that. We're a reality based league going off NFL rules and situations wherever possible, and where we can't (because we don't have real people doing real things) we try to simulate realistic environments as best we can.

I understand some of the complaints about an individual player's odd circumstances in the past that might lead to odd sim output if small sample data used, but it's an entirely different subject on how the sim generates results or how we treat players during the playoffs with seasonal averages if they only have a small sample size. And it could be discussed again. Been discussed and voted on many different off-seasons over the years of operation with some different tweaks to seasonal average calculations and playoff usage, etc.

I can understand if people don't agree how we cut grades if a player is out of the league after a certain amount of time, and there are probably people on both sides of that or wanting to tweak things this way or that way on that. And it can be discussed again, but different topic.

Holdout are another different topic that has been discussed at various times over the years, and can be again. It's certainly understandable to think about those situations as we think about opt-outs. Maybe what we do with opt-outs this year impacts rule changes for a different topic of financial contract holdouts in future years.

But we are a league that was built to focus intensively on REALITY. And this is a new reality today for the NFL that has never been seen. It's a different situation and topic than other old topics under regular situations.

Should a league focused on reality IGNORE reality and new circumstances that all NFL teams and NFL GMs are facing now? We were built to put our FanGMs into the jobs of those real GMs facing roster building situations within NFL realities. NFL GMs are having to deal new NFL league rules about this that allow players to opt-out and have processes for how that impacts their roster status, salary cap and payments. That's our game.

It's probably going to be more challenging to build rosters this year both in the NFL and here. To me seems like it could be a season that rewards great depth even more than usual, and I personally like that as that's one of the aims here in this roster building franchise game.

[dcpuck]

I agree with players option out not being available. If nothing else, there's no way these guys should have an unfair advantage of being guaranteed not to get hurt. In addition this is a real life simulation. Adjusting your roster due to personal decisions is part of real life. I say adapt and adjust like real NFL front offices are doing.