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.

[Goodell]

For teams that previously retired Michael Gallup, he's back in the NFL so back here now and reinstated if applicable per the notes on his contract remaining at the time of retirement found on the player page. If he's back on your roster at a high salary from previous contract picked back up in 2025 now and don't want him or for that amount, he can be cut without any additional salary cap implications beyond what transpired at the time of his retirement.

[Goodell]

Free agency is coming. Less than 10 days now.

Here are the priorities this week in preparation for that just FYI:

- Ensuring active GMs in as many teams as we can. Been holding out for resolution with many of the new people, but if I don't hear back this weekend will just fill with GMs looking for another team -- starting with those who have just one team currently and demonstrated they know what they're doing. We have plenty to fill the spots, just been slow to do so because lack of response/understanding from new people we prioritized first, but will just fill them soon. I haven't put some of the teams at-risk just yet who still haven't checked in, but had been on the site sometime in 2025. As free agency approaches, as I have GMs wanting another team per their check-in notes, we'll even replace some of those spots if their GM hasn't shown yet for free agency decisions. If you said you were looking for another team at check-in, I have your name and may contact you. We should have enough interested in that.

- Hoping to test some bid-score adjustments. Probably won't be massive changes as we need it to be operational soon, but hope to get in some tweaks we can test/adjust throughout the week prior to free agency and hopefully make some slight improvements before bidding. I'll post on that and give people chances to participate in testing as progress allows.

- We'll make some position adjustments per off-season discussions on that topic before people start bidding on players with positional expectations. Now a player's positional eligibility can change throughout their career so may shift and should always keep that in mind, but want to be fair in making those as soon as we can before players start hitting the markets. I'll try to hit many of those myself looking at highly graded players with multiple position eligibility and making sure those still make sense based upon NFL playing data, but I definitely won't get far on my own. If you know players you believe should be looked at for positional adjustment, as always you can click on their name on the site and suggest a player update to me through the system. I'll take a look at those also this week.