2015 RULES: Add another LTC, Restructure

[JonC]

I know I've already said it, but I just don't see the need for this. You get unlimited bids on your players. Yeah, an extra LTC is an easy, cost effective way to sign them. That's not how it should work. The best players should want to test the market, and not all of them should want to sign at an average of the top X players at their position.

The bottom line is this, if you have the cash, you can re-sign all of your own players if you want. You already have the final say.

Wrong even if you have a ton of cash the chances of even signing you best players to hit FA is ZERO!

Oynx is absolutely right.

There's an unfair advantage when the rebuilds have a 100 million in cash every year to blow in free agency without any real consequences. They won't lose their teams if they suck every year and there are no salary cap implications because they have so much cap room they can take a hit if they want to move a player for draft picks.

Free agency is supposed to be about an even playing field. It's not supposed to be a resource for crappy teams to raid good teams of their top players so they can trade them for more draft picks.

So fix the problem, don't appease it. If the problem is that some teams are perpetually terrible, there need to be consequences for those GMs. I understand that discussion has been had ad-nauseum...but as soon as we add a second LTC there will be GMs saying...2? Why not THREE!? I Should be able to re-sign ALL my players! I drafted them and I know fake Andrew Luck is super pumped to play for me!

Maybe there should be a cap penalty for trading a player in the first year after you sign him?
Maybe there should be a NTC issued for the first year of any deal, so that any trade would have to wait until it hurt a team for the following season?

I don't think the answer is to take 32 more top tier players off the FA market every year. I think that's terrible for parity.

[whteshark]

Evens what playing field?


What is the point of an LTC? The answer is... to sign a player so you don't have to pay top dollar.

Not paying top dollar just creates more money in the open market. So, now we're going to have "B" rated players getting paid more and more. A team with 80 mil to spend is going to spend it... since we don't carry over very much, there's no incentive to not use it.


An open market IS a level playing field. Poor teams have a shot at landing the best players. Good teams have a chance at losing the best players... THAT is a level playing field. The best players staying on the best teams is not level. That would be the opposite of level.

It's only one player, Jared, and it could be any player. I could LTC an up and coming player whose rating doesn't match his play yet.

And it's one thing for a poor team to try and land a key player--and it's another when that poor team blows his team up for draft picks and cap room (something you seem to do every couple of years) so he can squeeze other teams with outlandish contracts.

You signed Eli Manning a couple of years back to an outrageous one year deal--after one of your "epic" rebuilds--and then turned him for a couple of first round draft picks. I don't blame you for finding a hole in the system and exposing it for your own personal gain. However, a good portion of the league can't compete with outrageous salaries like that, nor does the NFL work like that.

And as I have stated before--the only reason top notch free agents ever make it to the market is usually because a GM wasn't active and left their players unprotected.

I'm fine with one LTC. I would love to have another because I take a longer view on my players and as long as they can help my team at the right price I'll hold onto them.

If the 2nd LTC option does get shot down I think the league should take a serious look at the pump and dumps--GM's that pump up a salary and then dump them for draft picks.

[Ben C.]

The whole design of the LTC system is to make sure the contracts are fair. How is paying a player a salary equal to an average of the top 5 of his rating at his position NOT paying top dollar?

[RebelFan]

The whole design of the LTC system is to make sure the contracts are fair. How is paying a player a salary equal to an average of the top 5 of his rating at his position NOT paying top dollar?

Exactly.

[JonC]

The whole design of the LTC system is to make sure the contracts are fair. How is paying a player a salary equal to an average of the top 5 of his rating at his position NOT paying top dollar?

Just to point this out before someone tries to devalue your argument because of it...Franchise is top 5 and LTC is top 10, correct?

And it's not paying top dollar when it's an elite player. DeMarco Murray could be LTC'd by me for the average of the top 10 salaries at his position when he's coming off a career season and is one of the highest - if not THE highest - rated RB going into next year.

Adding an LTC, to me, also really only exaggerates the issue. As someone has already pointed out, teams with $100MM to spend will still have to spend it. They'll spend it on lesser FA that they'll flip for picks, because there will still be GMs who would rather have the player than the pick. Those increased salaries for lesser FA will mean top players will make more and we'll have the same issue all over again.

Again, fix the problem. Impose a cap penalty on teams for moving guys they only signed in the most recent off-season. Impose a NTC for all FA in the first year of their deal so that if a player trades them after the first season, the cap hit goes on the next year. Significantly nerf one-year FA offers in the system. Impose a probation system for GMs with less than X wins each year for three years. There are any number of options that get to the root of the issue - decisions made by GMs that don't help competitive balance - as opposed to taking good players off the market.

[Jared A]

LTC is not top 10... it's average of top 10 players at or bellow your current grade. If it was top 10 overall... that's a total different argument.


That is FAR from top dollar. Especially since grades typically are delayed in going up... you can LTC someone who is headed north.



It isn't top dollar, because our "free market" would give them substantially more money.

[Royce R]

1 year minimum contracts will help fill the FA pool for all those worried about it.

[Jared A]

Also... it isn't just one player. It would be 64 players per year. The top 100 players in our league will never hit the open market.

[tino38]

Also... it isn't just one player. It would be 64 players per year. The top 100 players in our league will never hit the open market.

They hardly do in the NFL either, and with the way the new CBA is structured Suh may be one of the last few guys with that kind of talent to ever see FA again. It's happening in real life every year. Less and less top tier players hit FA because teams have the ability with increasing salary caps to do so. How is that unfair? Teams pay their talented players and hardly ever trade picks away. If we call that unfair then, We should limit the number of 1st round picks a team can have and a limit on the total picks as well because that means that many players I'll or someone else will never have a chance to draft. You'll never sign my free agent but I'll never get to draft most players entering the league. What's the difference?

[Royce R]

Also... it isn't just one player. It would be 64 players per year. The top 100 players in our league will never hit the open market.

I just don't see that being the case. The LTC on most players is not a bargain. In fact most years once the numbers come out people will complain about the fact that player X got cut and wasn't worth that money yet his salary shows up for the LTC on my player..

Many teams wont be able to afford 2 LTC.

LTC are Fair to Overpriced. Not bargain bin contracts.

The real problem is most people in the NFL aren't long term players and we have had a crappy 3 year minimum that has stole many of good players from ever getting a good contract.

Once people start doing 1 year minimums (or playing SB) thing will change. SB has to be paid and will use up more of the cap if we do longer term contracts and then cut. I would be very very surprised if we still see 3 year contracts for every player.

This offseason you will not see a big difference in the amount of free agents out there. But next year when the 2013 3 year contracts plus the 2015 1 year guys hit free agency at the same time that's when it will even out.

We have been messing things up with 3 year contracts forever. Glad to see that looks like it will be changing. Another LTC along with that will work out. There is going to be plenty of talent out there to fill the "few" holes a team should have.