2014 Off-Season Update

[Goodell]

How are we handling IR with ability to return this year?

Same as last year. There is just one IR list in general (didn't do any new programming regarding that) but if someone comes back from IR in NFL reality I'll remove that IR eligibility and a sim team can reactivate them here also. Maybe in the future we'll add additional programming toward separate short-term return from IR list that's different from regular IR and apply some of the other NFL limitations on that, but for now that's been the most efficient way to implement that here. I also think that might be best to have it generalized here as we don't have doctors or medical reports on these players to figure out which we should add to returnable-IR or not, and deciding between a couple different players on our sim roster possibly added but trying to figure out which of those to IR-Return here without any medical information on their individual cases to compare. So our teams just put all on IR and if someone comes back in reality, they can come back here too.

[whteshark]

A couple reminders...

Our 53 man roster deadline again is Thursday 9/4 8:30 PM ET.

All teams must be at 53 active players or less by that time. That's about 24 hours from now. Teams who are not will be warned, face possible GM replacement if we need to bring in someone to get the team in compliance with rules, possible reversal of recent transactions, and the league may also step in and make roster moves on the team's behalf to get all teams within the rules fairly at the start of the season.

Update your depth chart! I went in and updated team depth charts if they included players that were no longer on a team's roster and saw a lot of teams that hadn't updated their depth charts in a while. Click depth chart from your team roster and ensure your depth chart is set for players you want to prioritize with action in our game simulator.

Remember sim players from GB and SEA in the NFL will be locked in place once the NFL games begin this week tomorrow night, as you can't move players in/out of depth chart after their real games that week.

I'm trying to catch up on all the roster transactions. Some of the transaction logs used may miss players updates for IR/NFI/PUP/Sups/Retire, so if you're expecting an update from earlier this off-season that hasn't been updated here let me know.

Cut, cut, cut... let's get everyone under the 53 man roster limit and salary caps this time tomorrow. We have switched from off-season Rule of 51 mode to regular season 53 man roster with empty spot charges to get teams into regular season mode for the start of the season.

Commish,

After this deadline all salaries are guaranteed, correct?

[RebelFan]

How does that work if a veteran retires mid-season? We're still on the hook for his full salary?

[Knighty Knight]

How does that work if a veteran retires mid-season? We're still on the hook for his full salary?

Who was the last veteran to retire mid season? I don't see a vet going through camp, making a squad, then retiring unless there are some medical reasons. Even so I believe any of those announcements come during the off-season.

[Goodell]

Commish,

After this deadline all salaries are guaranteed, correct?

Thanks, I was going to emphasize that point again. Not all salaries become guaranteed after week 1, just the vested veterans (4+ years). Young players who are claimable/practice-squadable don't have their salaries guaranteed for making week 1 roster, just the vets.

Our deadline for that is our Week 1 sim, which will probably be about Wednesday next week (after we collect all the NFL week 1 stats after Monday night games). At that point, our sim season will be flipped to week 1 just prior to me running our sim, and once the week = 1 then all veterans on rosters would have their contracts guaranteed, so if a team tried to cut them mid-season they'd see a cap hit for full salary that became guaranteed as a vested veteran.

So definitely keep that in mind when you're making 53 man roster final decisions today, but teams still have some time after tonight to think more on that and cut any vets they are unsure about guaranteeing their annual salary before our Week 1 is simmed next week.

How does that work if a veteran retires mid-season? We're still on the hook for his full salary?

Retiring is like cutting a player in terms of salary cap, except keeping his rights if he ever un-retires. So it would be the same impact as if the player was cut mid-season. If a veteran with 4+ years experience if they are on week 1 roster they'd get full salary. If a guy was signed in week 2 (to avoid guaranteeing his salary in week 1) and retired in week 8, then it would be like he was cut with 6 weeks of game checks since he wasn't on week 1 roster and not fully guaranteed salary.

[soonertf]

Quick question on cutting a player to practice squad. If someone claims them, they can immediately cut them and put them on their practice squad? Sounds a little silly to me. Is there not a requirement to keep a claimed player on the active roster for a set period of time?

[Goodell]

Quick question on cutting a player to practice squad. If someone claims them, they can immediately cut them and put them on their practice squad? Sounds a little silly to me. Is there not a requirement to keep a claimed player on the active roster for a set period of time?

That's something I'm thinking more about toward future rules as I've been working on a larger rules document ahead.

Once the regular season starts, there really IS a requirement (at least financially) for paying the guy at least one week salary for every transaction signing/claiming even if you cut immediately. It's a one week minimum for all regular season transactions, so there's a cost to that. Even if he's on your team for 2 seconds, that's one week salary minimum. Before week 1, that currently doesn't kick in until we have the season weeks progressing until we move into regular season mode.

So some players get on the never ending cycle of cut-claim-cut-claim. I know that's a frustration to some and I've talked to some GMs in PM about it, and it's something I'm looking at for the future, but usually is only a temporary situation until the regular season starts and then there are costs for that activity.

I probably look at psquads a little differently. Some seem to see practice squad as ownership of a player. They really want a guy on their practice squad and will go to all sort of claim/cut lengths to try to get guys on their psquad, and keep going after guys over and over to get them on psquad. To me, psquad guys are FREE AGENTS. Practice squad shouldn't be seen as that valuable in my opinion. Anyone can sign them at any time. Yes with matching rights, but if nobody actually wants them on the 53 man roster matching rights don't mean anything.

If a guy actually does BECOME good enough to where someone actually wants him on a 53 man roster, then he'll likely get an over-priced bid in free agency. No matter who's practice squad team he's on. If he's on your psquad, you'll have to decide to match an over-priced bid or not. If he's on someone else's psquad, you'd have to be a team trying to place an offer out-bidding others and so good to get his practice team not to match. Either way, often it's an over-payment.

The real solution is if you REALLY want a guy, give him a contract. Give him a place on 53 man roster. At an affordable contract NOW. If not, anyone can sign him any time. Pay him a very affordable contract now if you have faith in him, or pay an outrageous amount later when people get bidding if he gets good. You have some limited options if you want to have to match someone else's over-payments usually, but for the most part if you really like a guy and really don't want to loose him, you need to find a spot on 53 for him. That's your only real control of his career. If he's not good enough to crack the most talented rosters with very little space, that's understandable as every team has limited spots, but then the decision's been made that we no longer want control over this player. He's been cut in favor of someone else. We're going with someone else. Cut player available to anyone. However many teams he moves from practice squad to practice squad really becomes almost irrelevant while he's UNWORTHY of a spot on ANYON'ES 53 man roster.

I'll think more on that for future rules to reduce frustrations with that, but my advise to some teams asking now is realize practice squads are free agents, if you really want a player you need to find a spot for him sometime and give him a real contract (maybe one of your players gets injured now that NFL started and you can find an extra spot for him with new injuries), and know that a minimum contract now for a young player you believe in should be so much better than just matching crazy offers later if he does become good. Choose well with the young guys you want to build with and sign them up affordably instead of just DEPENDING upon matching auction prices later.

[RebelFan]

Much ado about nothing.
It's a game within the game, and it works within the framework of the rules set forth by commish.
I don't like the one-week minimum because I'm near the end of the line in waiver priority. If there are multiple guys cut that I'm interested in, I'm going to put in a claim for all of them in the hopes that I'll land one. But if my team is awarded all the claims and I have to cut a couple of them, I'm on the hook for one week's salary. Something about that doesn't seem fair to me, but those are the rules.

Maybe if there were a dialogue that appears upon a successful claim asking if you're sure you want to add the claimed player to your 53? That would give owners a little more control over the waiver process.
Also, if each team had a waivers section to view/cancel waiver claims, I think that would be extremely helpful.

[Goodell]

Also, if each team had a waivers section to view/cancel waiver claims, I think that would be extremely helpful.

Actually I had started working on something like that. Hopefully implemented sometime this season ahead.

[Ulrich82]

I'm with Sooner on this one. It bugs me, but I don't know the solution. What I don't know is if people put in waiver claims because they don't realize the player is cut to PS.

I always check the status of a player from the search on the roster page (for new players, W is waiver, WP is waiver to practice squad). If the player status is WP, I won't put in a claim unless I intend to keep the player on my roster. Would it be possible to change the text in the transaction report for cut players? Either "team X cut player Y" or "Team X cut player Y to practice squad"? It might help clear up confusion from people not realizing the player is already headed to a practice squad.