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NFL practice squad rules started changing with COVID and then still evolving with some veterans being allowed on practice squads last year.

Another change over the last two years is the eligibility requirements for veteran players. Previously teams could have up to 4 players who had two years of NFL experience. Now teams can have 6 veterans with no limit on the amount of accrued seasons they have in the league.

There are some practice squad rules that we just can't track or enforce related to number of games played, etc. and we've tried to have our practice squad eligibility simplified.

We've always had it where young players under 4 years experience I believe were eligible, and allowed other teams to sign them (as happens in reality as they aren't active roster with any team) but give our home teams a week to notice that alert and match the contract or not.

As some of the practice squad last year could be veteran players with no limit on years experience, we could look at further simplifying to just make it so every player in the league was practice squad eligible. Might be a little different with lots of veterans on practice squads and the matching element, but lots of veterans on NFL practice squads now.

We discussed last year and will work to make it easier to do a quick 1-year minimum contract signing off the practice squad for teams when last minute injuries or other situations hit, so long as no other teams have bids on signing that player.

I'll be looking into how difficult it would be to make things more like the NFL's version of 2 players being able to be active roster players for game day without salaries impacting the salary cap. In recent years we just had teams sign 55 active roster guys but only 53 count, but will re-examine that a bit to see the best way to do it in our team management tools.

If you have any other practice squad thoughts, you can reply with those here as we look into slight adjustments there possibly this season.

If everyone is eligible, I wonder if we shouldn't shorten the waiver matching time to 2-3 days?

Can we call this one? Also would this mean all players go through waivers now?

Practice sqads won't be a thing yet until NFL pre-season is over and after the NFL has its 53 man roster cut downs (and here until a week before our cut down date right before the NFL season), so some time still for thoughts on that. Too busy with draft preparations following free agency kickoff and new GMs, etc. Some mixed reaction, but probably likely we'll take small steps to just making everyone practice squad eligible without any additional programming needed. Probably not any other impacts there. It's just a field on the player's data I have marked whether eligible or not, so could easily make everyone eligible.

How many practice squad players are allowed during regular season?

thunder23 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 13, 2023 1:42 am How many practice squad players are allowed during regular season?

NFL teams are allowed 16 players on practice squad now. Like last year, though, 2 of them can be activated. The way we incorporated that previously was have 55 roster limit (53 + 2) to allow for those two extra guys who can be on active roster and then had a 14 man practice squad (16 - 2). I'll take a look at that, but probably makes sense to continue this season that way programically. If so, our sim teams would have 14 man practice squad again.

For allowing any player of any experience to be added to practice squad (as some veterans can be in the NFL now with all sorts of rules about how many with little experience to how many veterans can be allowed), it was supported in vote and we want to accommodate that reality. Working through which options make the most sense to incorporate into current scripts. One way or another, veterans will be able to be added to sim practice squad too, but only veterans who have been cut or not on active rosters otherwise.

The ability to cut to practice squad will be activated here as NFL teams get close to their own cut-down deadlines and we head into the last week or pre-season games.

thanks