2013 Off-Season Update

[Goodell]

Teams can now start making some decisions for the 2013 league year.

Right now, if you visit your team roster it'll ask you to check in at the top of the page.

At the bottom of the page, you'll also find a place to enter any RFA decisions as well as setting your franchise/transition tag.

You can only designate ONE player to be tagged, either franchise or transition. Franchise tags can either be exclusive or non-exclusive at a value based upon the top 5 of their position as published by the NFL. Exclusive tags mean the player will not be able to negotiate with anyone else and can be signed immediately to a choice of options. Non-exclusive franchise tag means the player can be bid on, but you maintain matching rights for any offer he gets. If you decide not to match an offer received then you'll get 2 first round draft picks from the winning bidder.

Exclusive 5-year (200% of salary SB)
Exclusive 4-year (150% of salary SB)
Exclusive 3-year (100% of salary SB) NO TRADE FOR 1 YEAR
Exclusive 2-year (50% of salary SB) NO TRADE FOR 1 YEAR
Non-Exclusive (matching rights, 2 first rounder compensation)

You can also set RFA tenders at the bottom of the screen if you have younger players who are 3 years or less experience. RFAs are way down in reality based upon past discussions/polls and we've mirrored that reality here with draftee deals in general. Mostly the only guys who become RFAs are undrafted free agents signed to 3 year deals out of college or those who were cut from their rookie deals. You have matching rights for your RFA players on the market, and if you decide not to match you get the compensation designated (either first round, second round, or original NFL real draft round). Per rules discussions and popular support, you should be able to also designate an RFA into a UFA if desired.

Let me know if you have questions.

Beyond the exclusive franchise tag signings in helping you make those decisions, we'll turn LTC options on later this month also based upon our off-season discussions. Exclusive franchise tag contracts are based upon franchise tag values from NFL (or 120% of salary per NFL rules) and LTCs are similar to those contract options but based upon top 10 highest salaries of similar players (or 120% of salary).

[whteshark]

Quick question, Commish, I have Randy Starks who is up for free agency has played DE in the 3/4 and is now playing DT in the 4/3. Which designation will he get if I decide to franchise him? We're talking a difference of 4 million a year.

[Goodell]

Quick question, Commish, I have Randy Starks who is up for free agency has played DE in the 3/4 and is now playing DT in the 4/3. Which designation will he get if I decide to franchise him? We're talking a difference of 4 million a year.

That's a huge question that comes up in reality often also.

It uses the first position listed as the primary position I believe. I haven't quite finished an update of the player data where I usually try to go in an adjust players primary positions (and sometimes adjust positional eligibility) based upon how they are listed on NFL roster this year. I hope to complete that soon, but can be time consuming.

If you think your player is getting the wrong position quote, just send me a PM and I can look into it and adjust. Do that before you make your decisions online, as it's a pain to go back and reverse things. Once you decide, you decide and the league doesn't work well with do-overs.

[Ulrich82]

So, this probably would have to go on the list of things to revisit next year, but should there be a some penalty for using the exclusive tag over the non-exclusive version? In the NFL, the non-exclusive uses the average of last season's top 5 salaries. The exclusive tends to be higher because it uses the average of the coming season's top 5 salaries. Unfortunately, this makes the exclusive tag a moving number which is not exactly known until the season starts, but it generally makes the exclusive slightly higher since it factors in free agency signings. On here, it seems like there is no difference, so teams can use the exclusive tag to avoid the free agency market all together at no extra cost.

[Goodell]

So, this probably would have to go on the list of things to revisit next year, but should there be a some penalty for using the exclusive tag over the non-exclusive version? In the NFL, the non-exclusive uses the average of last season's top 5 salaries. The exclusive tends to be higher because it uses the average of the coming season's top 5 salaries. Unfortunately, this makes the exclusive tag a moving number which is not exactly known until the season starts, but it generally makes the exclusive slightly higher since it factors in free agency signings. On here, it seems like there is no difference, so teams can use the exclusive tag to avoid the free agency market all together at no extra cost.

True, but there's only so much complication we can reasonably deal with... the thought at the time was we'd use the tacked on signing bonus (which some thought was too much) to balance that and boost those prices up adding some guaranteed premium to them.

[djmixer30]

When WIll we be able to place LTC on players, or if at all?

[Goodell]

When WIll we be able to place LTC on players, or if at all?

I'm still working with some of the adjustments dicussed in off-season rules discussions, and still open for more feedback as people try out various players and report any problems noted for us to polish up. Teams should get one LTC like last year. The only adjustment we'll make I think is just getting better LTC values generated looking at larger samples of players.

My expectation is free agency starting early April, but some things turn on before then when ready. Might be able to cut players again this week, restructure contracts, and possibly LTCs this week. Trades perhaps turned on this weekend, then we get into April where free agency.

It's not vital that I'm always around as the scripts handle much of everything, but found out I'll be gone 3/31-4/2 but with internet access at night hopefully from hotel. Sometimes it's good for me to be around more during the start of free agency, though, as sometimes mistakes entered with too many zeros or new gms not sure about something, etc. Someone else posted they'd be away that week, and it's spring break for my daughter so perhaps others. So could see free agency more later that week instead of the start, but might have a poll on free agency start date preferences.

[Ulrich82]

I would agree that using the NFL rule would be too difficult given our more static cap management tools. Since the same signing bonus applies to non-exclusive franchise players who don't get offers, there is no reason not to use the exclusive tag unless you want to shop offers on the player.

I know people like to stick to real NFL rules, but I wonder if making long term contracts on the exclusive tag something like 10% above the franchise tender would be a good rule (I picked an arbitrary number, so 10% may be too big). Or, unsigned non-exclusive players could get a 10% discount on a long term contract if they are unsigned after the free agency period.

The NFL makes a big deal about exclusive/non-exclusive (for example, the issue of if Baltimore would pay the higher exclusive tender to keep from losing Flacco or would allow him to shop the market on the franchise tag). It seems to me like building some incentive to exposing franchise players to the free agency market would be healthy for the leagues.

[Goodell]

Good thoughts to ponder for future. The real reason to use exclusive for us now is to keep the player off the market so bidding can't get crazy and the team can immediately just jump to sign the guy at franchise tag level prices (or 120% of salary whichever is higher). Then we tack on pretty nice sized signing bonus depending upon years selected beyond the franchise tag price.

I'm kind of surprise it isn't used more. Kind of thinking at the time we put it in that it would almost do away with the non-exclusive franchise tags and some of the messiness that sometimes comes with franchise tag players and trades involving their rights or negotiations around matching offers and resulting compensation, etc. I like that more certainty with exclusive tags and a cleaner process that usually mirrors what happens in reality where tagged players mainly end up signing long-term with team, although sometimes odd things happen in NFL too like tagged players traded or just doing their 1-year deal and going through it again next off-season.

It'd have to be toward future off-seasons as we've jumped into teams able to tag players and start making those decisions as we near free agency this year, but definitely open to other thoughts or proposals on modifying those contract options offered to exclusive and non-exclusives without offers to match. We probably made it fairly straight forward and simple to get started but could look into adding in more differentiation details ahead or shifting the options given in the different situations.

[sportznut]

How long do we have to make these decisions?