2025 Off-Season Update

[Goodell]

Now that you're seeing all sorts of moves in the NFL starting their new league year, it's time for us also!

I have turned on some internal decision-making tools for pending free agents such as tagging, tag-and-extend, LTC, RFA tenders, etc.

There is NO RUSH. The deadlines for pending free agent decisions won't be until free agency starts probably in April. Once you sign a deal like a LTC, there's no un-doing it days later if someone said they would have traded you something better for them or whatever. A signed contract is a signed contract.

If you have an elite player pending free agency who deserves a top 10 type salary at their position, a FRANCHISE TAG might make sense. You have options for that including tagging and extending them (which doesn't count as one of your LTCs), having them hit the market where you could get 2 first rounders if you don't match a contract, or even being able to trade them if you have them sign a 1-year tag tender at franchise tag price.

If your elite player already had an inflated salary and tag/LTC prices are too high because of raise requirements, our TRANSITION TAG might make sense as we set that with those balloon salary situations in mind. It allows you to match any offer they get at open market prices, but no compensation if you don't match. They also wouldn’t get compensatory pick considerations if tagged not UFA. Sometimes it’s best to just rely on unlimited bidding for your own UFAs and possibly get comp pick later if lose.

You also have two LTCs and might want to check those out prior to tag decisions. If you don't have any pending free agents who need a LTC to avoid hitting the market and instead wish to use them on players in their last year under contract, sometimes it makes sense to wait a bit on those. They aren't going anywhere as under contract and gives you more time to see if any issues or trade demand or injuries, etc. You have all year to use those two LTCs even into the season, but the price is the same all year whether you use them now or week 18. No discounts or partial season percentages. Once signed, that's the price they get for all years of the deal including this year.

You can also cut players. Don't cut your UFAs as you have unlimited bidding on players associated with your team still and might impact your compensatory picks in the future. Restructuring also available. You get 2 now and we add 1 more restructure before the season as difficult to create cap space once regular season games start.

You may also see options for picking up 5th year options for former first round draft picks going into their last year. There's a link next to that choice to see extended contract options to extend the option price further.

It's just internal decisions mostly on pending free agents for now. We won't turn on any trading yet until I set final draft orders and compensatory picks from last off-season so teams know exactly what picks being moved and not guessing. We also want some time to fill GM spots before tons of inter-team activity they'd miss out on.

Now's a great time for new people to join if you know anyone as we'll be filling spots soon.

Let me know if any questions or issues. Great to have league activity starting up again!

[Goodell]

Looking through the check-in notes about date conflicts, this upcoming date didn't have any conflicts that I saw.

Sunday, April 13th at NOON ET.

We'll tentatively set that as the penciled-in start date for free agency. Watch this thread for announcements otherwise, but unless noted we'll work toward free agency starting then.

Free agency isn't just one day, of course. Once it's on, it'll run continuously until the end of the regular season months from now.

[Goodell]

We'll start turning trades on this weekend across the free leagues. Probably a couple of them this afternoon and the rest either tonight or tomorrow morning as I finish up the official draft orders.

Before trades are made there may be something new to keep in mind. I'm hoping to implement some feedback elements to the trade announcements that we've talked about in past off-season discussions. Other GMs may have the ability to rate a trade or suggest that it's bad enough for trade veto consideration, etc.

Last off-season a GM of the Year point system was discussed and widely supported as kind of a for fun addition to the game play (just for fun bragging rights) and to reward GMs doing well even if their team was rebuilding. Trading activity may be part of that if I can implement. So doing trades most deem as "fair" may be more valuable to your GM of the Year considerations than always ripping people off with trades so bad many view as should be vetoed, etc.

That won't be implemented yet when trades turned on, but GMs would be able to go back to trades made this off-season and voice their feedback on such things. It's possible that information could be useful in deciding which GMs do well with activity the league finds positive for awarding additional teams or promotion to future AFFL openings, etc.