2014 RULES: Values for Players Without Grade

[tetonka12]

I agree that a non roster spot being a 1.0 and a player without a grade a 3.0.

Completely agree with this.

[Jared A]

Isn't that saying, though, that your personnel decisions for depth don't matter so much. Fill your roster up with 30 guys who'll be out of the league next year and no biggie, they'll still be decent backup grades anyway automatically. No matter who they are. In the league, out of the league, all good. Just focus on signing 22 starters for as much of your cap as you can and leave the rest to a bunch of empty roster spots or guys out of the league and they'll still be decent enough backup grades without having to do any work to sign backup depth. Different from fantasy game, we hope to make this more of a 53-man roster team building game where depth matters a lot.

I think we can increase the value from 1.0 but if it gets too high it's basically saying who you have as backup becomes increasingly irrelevant the higher any backup no matter who they are have heightened grades comparable to signing real guys in the league instead. To me in a 53-man roster game, that should matter more and winning on depth should be part of the gameplay in a GM based game where real GMs focus so much on entire roster depth.

I'll start by saying "not really". You're assuming that real life NFL GM's are selecting players that are significantly better than those who at the end of the roster. They select their last players on their roster according to need. We should be able to do the same, however, we can't. Simply because most of those guys don't have real grades.

[Goodell]

I'll start by saying "not really". You're assuming that real life NFL GM's are selecting players that are significantly better than those who at the end of the roster. They select their last players on their roster according to need. We should be able to do the same, however, we can't. Simply because most of those guys don't have real grades.

There are lots of guys with grades at all positions across all of our leagues that aren't signed here and sit on the free agency lists all year here while teams decide to pay guys who aren't playing in the NFL and never will again.

If a guy is out of the league on his sofa for a year because no NFL team will employ him, why would it be said he's equal to someone in the NFL currently and actually being paid playing every Sunday?

To me, keep a bunch of players with no future in the league who'll be out of the league soon and never employed again and pay them highly while nobody in the NFL will pay them anything at all ever again, isn't something to reward.

GM A does a lot of research and signs a young undrafted LB who flashes skills, has a low grade as rookie lesser known but some potential for maybe more ahead, and keeps him as his 53rd man.
GM B decides to keep a 35 year old LB who had a big name 5 years ago and was cut by his NFL team last year and will never play again, despite there being dozens of LBs with grades on the first page of the free agency list.

To me, in a game setup for players to compete as GMs, I give the win to GM A and would want to have the league encourage that development. Not say those guys should be exactly equal value. They aren't the same value in the NFL. The NFL wants nothing to do with the guy GM B is still paying. The NFL wants everything to do with young guys coming up filling up their roster depth. They give no value to old players out of the game. We want to make them much more valuable here for some reason.

In the NFL, teams cut those guys. Cut them before they guarantee them lots of money. Many of our teams don't want to cut them. They want to keep paying them and lobby for their value to be raised even while unemployed and will never be in NFL again most likely. To me, our teams should follow more NFL attitude there. That's what we're trying to encourage in an NFL simulation. NFL cuts those guys. They don't guarantee their contracts.

Some of that difference where we want to hold onto name guys longer (even if they are unemployed) will shift as we implement higher veteran contract minimums that are much more expensive than signing the younger guys. I'm hopeful more GMs will see, like the NFL, it's better to sign a young guy actually playing in the league for less than an older guy making more whose unemployed and likely to never play again.

[Knighty Knight]

I agree with the Commish. This shouldn't even be an issue. I've only been here one year but I don't have an empty spot or an ungraded player. My only ungraded players were undrafted rookies who eventually got a grade. I'm strongly in favor of league rules that encourage compliance of basic things like filling a 53 man roster or paying a veteran the veteran's minimum. I don't keep any player on my roster that isn't on a roster or practice squad in the NFL and neither should any other GM, nor should they benefit in simulation.

[Jared A]

But, there's a ton of instances where we don't know if the player will be picked up.


We have a vet, and he isn't cut until the day the season starts. We get hosed because he gets cut, ends up with no grade, and if we cut him... we're out his salary. We're already getting screwed one way, with no grades, we end up getting screwed twice.

[Goodell]

I know there are some frustrations about that or maybe getting stuck with players in the past. Thinking the plan now based upon what discussed so far and some mixed but more supported votes would be to raise the value for players with no grade some. I'm probably never going to be on board that players out of the league should have high values. Never be on board that we should encourage teams to just keep old guys out of the league on their rosters instead of replacing them with actual players on actual teams. NFL gives zero value to these guys, so I don't quite see the importance that we make it a priority to make them much more valuable than we do, but agree we can increase that amount somewhat for guys out of the league unemployed.

Guys out of the league isn't a huge thing for me. To me, seems obvious they shouldn't have much value. We can argue over should it be 1.0 or 2.0 or 3.0, etc. but to me I can't see prioritizing making sure guys out of the league get much higher grades. The thing that would bother me a lot was if the zero grade or empty spots were so high that even if a team had one of those pop into their averages due to a real solid player going out that it had no impact or barely any impact. That's basically saying your backups don't matter at all, so don't worry about it. Get a guy whose out of the league for years and your grade average won't change hardly at all even if he's listed as your backup. That's not the message I'd want to send in a GM based game where we're trying to build up total team roster building competition. We want to reward teams with real quality depth, not try to make everyone have the same depth whether the players are playing or not.

Here's the deal.

The initial Madden grades for the new season come out before or during the pre-season, right?
NFL's 53 man roster cut date is usually a week before week 1 I believe looking at calendars.
Our sim league is delayed start from NFL season weeks. No sim salaries are guaranteed until we sim our games which is at least a week+ after the 53 man roster cutdown in NFL and usually a couple days even after week 1 in the NFL when you know for SURE that a guy made NFL week 1 roster and is already guaranteed in the NFL or not days before we start to sim with the NFL 53 man cut down nearly 2 weeks ago almost by then.

Nobody is forcing teams to keep old guys with no grades who aren't on teams. You'll know weeks or maybe months before if Madden gave them a grade initially. And at least a week and a half before our sim season if they made someone's 53 man roster on NFL cut down date, at least a couple of days AFTER NFL week 1 that you still can cut a veteran and still not have him guaranteed in our sim. To me, that's not that short notice. But if you have a guy with no grade for much of the pre-season and very worried about if he'll have one or not, he's got to jump to at least the strongly consider cutting list for your sim team I'd think.

I'd say it's a big risk to go against the NFL and keep those kinds of old guys not on rosters because of the NFL and our rules regarding veterans on the team on week 1. But if a team really believes strongly in a old veteran not on a team without a grade to start the season, I wish them all the best in guaranteeing that money if they really think it's worth that chance they bounce back into the league. Maybe that'll pan out sometimes. Teams can risk that if they want. I don't encourage it. NFL largely doesn't do it as that's why those guys get cut or have no grades in the first place. I'd say our teams should cut them too, but they don't have to. I just don't think we should change our system much to REWARD that kind of inaction that I think we should instead discourage.

To me, it's much wiser to do what the NFL does with those guys. Very simple, very easy to cut them if you don't want to guarantee their salary. Sign them a week later if you just have to have them and believe they're coming back sometime, when it isn't guaranteed. To me that's a simple thing teams can do just like NFL teams do, and our league should encourage that reality of behavior vs. needing to give unemployed players much more value and making it irrelevant whether or not your roster has guys who can even play in the NFL or not. To me, it should be very relevant.

[Jared A]

Then let's stop lowering the grades of players who are cut mid season or actually have grades but don't make the team. Only raise and lower grades according to Madden.


Right now, in my opinion, the guaranteed vets rule, 1.0 rule, and lowered grades if not playing rule are working together to make it almost impossible to have normal backup players.

[Goodell]

Then let's stop lowering the grades of players who are cut mid season or actually have grades but don't make the team. Only raise and lower grades according to Madden.


Right now, in my opinion, the guaranteed vets rule, 1.0 rule, and lowered grades if not playing rule are working together to make it almost impossible to have normal backup players.

I'm not sure I understand. I don't think there is a shortage of players with grades is there? When I look at free agency right now there are over 600 players with grades all unsigned for teams to sign for a guy with a grade at positions all over the field. Some of them at the bottom of the scale have grades in the 2's, but grades none the less. To make someone who hasn't played in years worth more than a guy with a real grade in the league wouldn't make sense would it? So I think we can increase the value there but not to where they are higher than real grades from real players in the league.

To me, the biggest problem on this issue is that it's easy to forget about guaranteed contracts. We just started doing that in recent seasons. I could see how someone might miss that or forget about that and really wish an old veteran out of the league wasn't on their team any more but forgot they had to cut him before guaranteed. It's something we can make a stronger push to making sure to remind people of that and maybe even have their team roster give them an alert once initial madden scores released.

The only players grades we reduce ourselves are players who haven't played in the NFL at all during the season. We don't reduce the grades of guys who get cut by the NFL mid-way through the season. We do it when a player retires obviously. We do it once otherwise for guys not playing but not officially listed under retired on NFL transactions, at week 4 mark and only include guys who didn't make a team at all and haven't played all season. We do it because they may have gotten a high grade month and months ago back before preseason ever started but madden will never update their grade ever again if they never are in the NFL ever again. Some may want guys who never play in the NFL again to be highly valuable sim players for a year after they've stopped playing in the NFL just because Madden will ignore them entirely since they aren't in football anymore, but I don't see the logic in that.

Say for example, old Player X has high name recognition, a strong history, and gets a fairly high grade when madden announced initial grades months before the season and before any training camps. He's had injuries though. He's trying to hang on in the league but no team wants him. He never has his fairly high summer grade updated at all ever again because he's never in football again. Doesn't retire really this year because he's still looking for work in NFL, but nobody wants to touch him at all. He's essentially done. That's how the NFL values him.

Would you instead make him one of the most magically important player in our sim? He's a player who's grade can NEVER go down all season if you want us to not do that any more because madden will never have him listed on roster updates since he's on no roster. He can NEVER get hurt. He's invincible in the sim! All other players in our sims see their grades go up or down based upon NFL weekly performance. All other players in our sim can get hurt from week to week. But this guy is magical. He's stopped playing in NFL but will have a bulletproof high grade set months ago last summer that can't change all year. He can't ever have injuries because he's at home on his sofa and won't appear on any injury reports. He'd suddenly become a very valuable player in the sim with magical abilities to never get hurt and never have his grade reduced unlike anyone else in the sim. Is that preferred? Make unemployed players among the most valuable assets in the sim leagues immune to any grade reductions or injuries unlike all other sim players actually playing football in reality? I just can't see that making sense to me.

[Jared A]

I had a secondary player a couple years ago who was rated as a B. Didn't make a team, but got signed mid season by the Titans. When he was signed, his grade didn't go back up to where Madden had him. It stayed at where he had been dropped for not playing.


What is the lowest you drop a player who doesn't make a team, but was given a grade by Madden?

[Goodell]

I had a secondary player a couple years ago who was rated as a B. Didn't make a team, but got signed mid season by the Titans. When he was signed, his grade didn't go back up to where Madden had him. It stayed at where he had been dropped for not playing.


What is the lowest you drop a player who doesn't make a team, but was given a grade by Madden?

If that's the case it would be that Madden never included him on any of their weekly roster updates data. They update hundreds of players each week. It's possible that a guy will never have any updates all season (or half season in that case). But we rely upon those weekly published updates. Would be difficult to keep up with every signing ever and track every individual personally and see if they signed later then go look up their grade from last summer. Maybe if a team contacts me we could do that if no updates made for a couple weeks ahead. We'd have to see how often someone never gets a grade update all season, but for the most part we have had to rely upon them updating his grade along with the hundreds of grades they update as the season progresses.

I believe we drop a player 25% if they had a grade from the summer but didn't make anybody's 53 man roster and never played in the NFL after that through 4 weeks.

People can gamble with guys with no grades or guys who the NFL cuts, but I'd advise that's a risky think to do, especially if a team wants to guarantee that risk. I'd advise cut them before week 1 and pick up again after once no longer guaranteed if wanting to gamble on guys with no grades eventually getting a grade again.