2011 OFF-SEASON PRIMER

[Goodell]

Wheels have been set in motion to start designating tagged players and RFA tender amounts. I want to give it a little time for reaction, though, if something off with the numbers.

Right now the only thing you can do is click the submit button near the top of your team roster to check in. You can also see what the RFA/tag decisions could be for your team at the bottom. You can't select those yet, but soon. Let me know if you see any issues to correct there before we have those decisions live.

Here's what I've decided for this off-season. Still open to some feedback, but have had a lot of time to hear thoughts and this makes sense to me now.

$120.375M salary cap using the real salary cap figure from NFL as we've done every year this league has been in existence and had a cap figure to use.

I've removed the annual charge per team for performance bonuses and other miscellaneous costs. We'll look at that again next year as we know more details about cap accounting in the future.

Will allow teams to borrow up to 3M against next year's cap like reality, but that will require a team contacting me and discussing it. It's mostly going to be used this year for me to administer salary cap enforcement easier and have less time when teams are over their caps. This also creates more of a penalty IMO for being over your cap versus the past when I tried to resolve it other ways (removing players off IR to not have empty spot charges, reversing transactions, splitting cap hits, etc.), wherease now I'd be able to just quickly apply a cap hit to next season and bring that money to this year to put them back under with a penalty for next year's cap reduced.

This recent article describes the NFL generally now and largely what we'd be doing now:
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/football ... ay/1184190

No cap floor, but could be coming in future seasons (as it increases in importance in the NFL in the future it sounds like) so fair warning and also that we may adjust contract signing requirements then to stop potential loopholes for beating the floor with unrealistic contracts further restricted then.

Keeping the same rules as before with 1 Franchise Tag and 2 transitional tags available, but just doing that for now until a better way for us to resign our own and make tagging more realistic ahead.

With some of the tighter budgets, I'd really recommend teams don't rely upon tagging outside of truly ELITE players (top 5 at their position) because the price tags are expensive and you have great advantages to sign your own without tagging with unlimited bids for your own players.

With the CBA situation last March, I read the NFL didn't publish their usual list of franchise/transition tag prices. However this site from NFL.com site highlights some of the expected franchise tag price changes that we've implemented this year. There was no transition price tag listed, so I adjusted that value by the same percent change for franchise tags. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d8 ... se-for-dts

For restricted free agents, I updated teams rosters so that any player with less than 4 years experience would be RFA and used tender amounts listed here: http://www.macsfootballblog.com/2011/03 ... ender.html

We will allow two contract restructurings (can't do those just yet either) this transition year instead of the one we've always allowed.

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Remember, you can't make your RFA/Tag decisions official just yet. I want to ensure what I set those at seems right and no obvious issues before we start that soon.

For now, just click the submit button at the top of your team roster to check-in, and the list of teams who have checked-in will be viewable on the team directory link to the top right side of the site. Review your team, and let me know if any problems. Thanks for your patience, and we're getting closer to opening activity. Stay tuned.

[Nathan S.]

Looks good, thanks Troy!

[Goodell]

You can also now make your RFA and Franchise/Transition tag decisions but submitting the form at the bottom of your roster. Send me a PM if any questions, but basically...

- For RFAs, you can either keep the player at their original draft pick compensation (what draft round they were selected in REALITY) or select a higher compensation requirement. If someone offers your RFA a contract, you can match it -- or if you decline to match you get the compensation selected based upon the RFA tender. The higher the tender, the higher the player's contract for 2011 if they do not receive any offers to consider matching, they will automatically sign their 1-year tender at that tender amount.

If you set RFA tender levels too high for a player, you may not have any contracts bidded that would allow you to match and sign the player long-term with the compensation scaring off bidders. Too high of a tender might mean you only keep the player under contract for next year at the tender amount, when they'd become a UFA.


- Transition players do not have any compensation associated, but you can match any offer they receive on the market to retain them. IF you don't match, you lose the player without compensation. Don't tag anyone, though, who isn't a top 10 player in the game at their position, as any contract for that player next year starts with a huge annual salary for a star in the game. You have unlimited bidding for all of your UFAs, so you don't need to tag a player to have a great shot at retaining them.

- Franchise tag is for the elite top 5 at their position and comes with a huge contract for next year. You can match any offers the franchise tagged player gets, and if you let the player walk you get 2 first rounders in compensation (must be first rounders this year and/or next year only). Don't franchise tag someone who isn't worth a massive salary, as any bids would have to start with a huge top 5 salary for that position. You have an additional option with franchise tagged players if they do not receive any market bids to match, in that you can extend the player's contract at that high top 5 salary for multiple years after free agency.

You can trade the rights of a player who has been tagged or restricted, and the same rights apply to the player's new owners.

With a lower cap, I'm not sure if we'll see the same massive bids as we did before, so really be careful before you franchise/transition tag a player. The market bidding with teams having less cap space might end up being lower than the franchise/transition tag figures, and you have big advantages in keeping your own UFAs.

For those who haven't done free agency with us before, you get 5 bids per 24 hours for other team's UFAs, but unlimited bidding for trying to sign your own UFAs.

Once free agent decisions selected, the player's 2011 salary will automatically be filled in with the tender amount decided. This will reduce your cap space by that amount, limiting what you can do in free agency with lowered cap space. If you make a mistake or want to change and the system doesn't let you, contact me.

Deadline for decisions is one week from today, 8/14. After which, we'll start free agency tentatively.

[Leb]

It's good to see things moving along. Are we going to be able to sign rookies before free agency? The NFL opened rookie signing before vet signings and I known I would like to know the cap hit of my rookies from new rookie contracts this year before I send out any free agent offers.

[whteshark]

Will it be possible to cut and be able to trade players before the start of free agency so teams can free up some cap?

[Dustin S.]

ya, how about cutting or restructuring or trades?

[Royce R]

What about not offering a RFA tender. Letting them be UFA but still on your team where you get unlimited bids.

I don't really wanna offer some of my crappy RFA 1 mil contracts

I think in reality they don't have to put a RFA tender on them.

[Adam K]

What about not offering a RFA tender. Letting them be UFA but still on your team where you get unlimited bids.

I don't really wanna offer some of my crappy RFA 1 mil contracts

I think in reality they don't have to put a RFA tender on them.

You can just cut them and not absorb any cost.

[Royce R]

yes but im wanting to bid minimum on them to re-sign w/out the cost of a bid

[Goodell]

yes but im wanting to bid minimum on them to re-sign w/out the cost of a bid

There haven't been any rules changes about that discussed. I'd have to look back on past off-seasons there, but don't recall that in the past. Maybe some room for future rule change discussion there in the future, but for the most part I think it's been if you want to retain a player you have the right to restrict their movement. If you don't want to retain them in that specified manner, they'd be set free to the open market.