2011 RULES: Draft or Wait

[soonertf]

I agree with Jared that we should wait. What is the rush? We do this every year, then we sit on our hands bored for two months. However if we do have the draft, then we need to keep it at same rules as the NFL, I don't think having draft and trading players should even be an option (even though that kills my strategy if I can't trade players). WE should either a) keep it real or b) wait to see final picture and then go with the new NFL rules.

[Jared A]

I agree we shouldn't wait until September or anything like that. But, waiting until July or waiting until an agreement happens (if it happens first) wouldn't really affect the league. If there's a lock out, it's not like we would be gaining an advantage of player knowledge for the draft.


My issue is this... REAL life owners have a TON more knowledge going into this draft. They know what their demands are, and they know where this is headed. We have no clue. We don't even know what's on the table other than rumors.


1. Rookie Salary Scale
2. RFA
3. Franchise Tags
4. Salary Cap
5. Free Agency


All those things drastically affect the way our GM's handle their picks and free agency. None of those things are determined going into the draft? It doesn't make sense to just take shots in the dark and "hope" that they turn out for the best. Real owners and GM's aren't doing that... they know about where those things will end up.

[Dan M]

I voted to wait. There are just way too many variables at play.

[Smooth Glitch]

"It doesn't make sense to just take shots in the dark and "hope" that they turn out for the best. Real owners and GM's aren't doing that... they know about where those things will end up."

IMO I think it is a reach to say the owners know how things will end up..obviously I nor anyone else really knows for certain otherwise there would be CBA.
We can guess that rookie scale will go down, which to me is a non-issue for waiting...if we expected rookie scales to increase then I could buy the wait approach.
One of the greatest things that others and Goodell have talked about is the CFFL being a relative representation of real life events. Personally I'm excited about the draft mirroring real life as it will put a slightly different spin on the draft and allow CFFL GM's to make decisions regarding their teams with certain "variables" thrown in the mix.

I certainly can see the feelings that some others may have towards the other options and why they would consider them but I for one like it when the CFFL appraoches externalities such as CBA, draft, offseason, etc in a somewhat similar environment as the NFL is faced with.

[Ben C.]

I voted to keep it real. I actually think we'll see a deal pretty quickly. There's too much at stake for both sides for them to have a long-term lockout. Especially with the TV deal ruling that came out this week.

Even then, I think we can make some reasonable estimates of what things are going to be like.

Following Jared's list of issues, plus 2 more that I see:

1. Rookie Salary Scale - there will be a scale and this will be something the players give in on as part of the compromise. The union represents current players (most of whom didn't benefit from the outrageous rookie deals of the last decade), not rookies, and actually has motivation to have a rookie scale. The less the unproven rookies are paid, the more cap room is available to veterans.

2. RFA - the players want RFAs to drop to 3 years (originally it was 4), the owners are saying they want it at 6 (where it was during the no-cap year). Likely it will revert to 4.

3. Franchise Tags - these will stay. Bill Polian of the Colts has a lot of influence in the league and if he loses the ability to keep Manning tagged, it'd be a huge issue for the team. I'd see the owners giving in on RFA or the revenue issue (salary cap) before getting rid of the franchise tags. Transition tags may be a different story though, as they don't seem to get used very often anyway.

4. Salary Cap - When I met Andrew Brandt last fall he talked a lot about the cap issue. There are a few issues that come into play here. A) What monies are involved in determining the revenue split - currently the owners get $1 billion taken off the top of the league revenues before the split takes place and the players don't like that. Meanwhile the owners want to increase that to $2 billion. Could be reasonable to assume this gets split at $1.5. Argument is that as the overall revenues have increased so should the amount the owners get to cover stadium issues (maybe this will end up being tied to the overall revenues as a percentage off the top). B) salary floor - everyone in the media talks about the cap, but for the union the real issue is the floor, which is the minimum teams must spend. There are teams that if they could get away with it they would field teams filled with minimum contract players to save money for a year or two. The players understandably don't like that. C) salary cap - In 2006 the owners agreed to the deal that is expiring which included a 15 or 16% increase to the cap. After that the cap continued to increase at its average pace of about 6% annually. I expect that the owners will not be able to roll back the increase but will instead compromise and keep the 6% increase going (unless they can try and get that down to something more in line with actual economic growth and be something like 3%). Therefore, taking the last actual salary cap number from 2009, $128 million, and increasing it by 6% for 2010, $136 (rounded), and then another 6% for 2011, you get $144 million. I think we can expect a salary cap around that number.

5. Free Agency - I don't know what Jared was referring to here.

6. 18-game season - I think the players will compromise here in order to get the revenue figures they want. And I think the owners will give the revenue figures in order to get the 2 extra regular season games (which make much more money).

7. Health Insurance for retireds - Most agree they need to do something, but neither party wants to pay for it. I suspect they will find a compromise and each pay a portion.

And that's it for my mini-rant about the labor issues. I hope you all found it enjoyable/entertaining/educational or at least thanks for humoring me and giving me a topic / platform to use for procrastinating.

[Jared A]

Free Agency for us always starts prior to the draft. We won't be able to do that this year if there's a lock out.


Teams in real life are currently signing players to contracts, so, going into the draft, they know their needs. We won't be able to sign any players to contracts... so, we have no idea of our needs.


Ben, every single one of your assumptions is a guess. The owners/union have not made a single statement... infact, I've heard people saying if there's a rookie payscale, they'll do away with franchise tags. Simply because the players hate these tags. The issue on RFA's most likely will end up being a "compromise". Something like, well if you want rookie payscale, we'll do that, but then RFA's can only be 2 years. Or the other way... if you don't want a rookie payscale, RFA's need to be 6 years. Either way... it's an enormous gap. Basically, if it's all going to end the same, the owners wouldn't have opted out of the CBA in the first place. And, the union isn't going to just give the owners a payscale and 2 extra games without being compensated. It's completely unpredictable, unless you're on the inner circle.


I didn't mention the 18game season, or the benefits, because it has nothing to do with this league. Won't change a thing.

[Jared A]

What about extending the "FanGM" CBA an additional year? That'd allow the real NFL time to fix their issues. Basically, we operate exactly like we have the passed few years. Then, when the new CBA is in place, we can adopt it?

[Onyxgem]

What about extending the "FanGM" CBA an additional year? That'd allow the real NFL time to fix their issues. Basically, we operate exactly like we have the passed few years. Then, when the new CBA is in place, we can adopt it?

This is not actually a bad idea at all....

[Smooth Glitch]

Maybe this doesn't make sense but I see problems with that idea, for example...
You extend everything for a year...so how do the contracts for rookies work? Do you sign him to a contract that has been typical of the large rookie contracts in the past and then in real life once the CBA is reached there is a rookie pay scale...
I would think that we draft in the same manner that real life currently seems headed for and contracts would be assigned based on the rookie scale once set in the CBA

There are certainly a lot of concerns, questions, etc as there is so much uncertainty and specualation with what will happen. For that reason I think it will save us all a lot of aggravation (especially Troy) if we stay as close to the real life schedule as possible until things are hammered out and the picture of the future is clearer.

All the best.
SG

[Jared A]

Maybe this doesn't make sense but I see problems with that idea, for example...
You extend everything for a year...so how do the contracts for rookies work? Do you sign him to a contract that has been typical of the large rookie contracts in the past and then in real life once the CBA is reached there is a rookie pay scale...
I would think that we draft in the same manner that real life currently seems headed for and contracts would be assigned based on the rookie scale once set in the CBA

There are certainly a lot of concerns, questions, etc as there is so much uncertainty and specualation with what will happen. For that reason I think it will save us all a lot of aggravation (especially Troy) if we stay as close to the real life schedule as possible until things are hammered out and the picture of the future is clearer.

All the best.
SG

We do it exactly the way we do it now. We base our contracts off of the contract that the real player signed. Those players won't have contracts until the cba is established anyways. So, IF a rookie payscale goes into affect, we use it. If a rookie payscale doesn't, we just sign the players for what ever that selection was signed for in real life.