5th Year Option for 2011 1st Round Picks

[Goodell]

Perhaps I have missed this? But if a team decides to pick up the option and then the player suffers a major injury, or something happens where the team no longer wants to pay the player that money and a team decides to cut the player feeling he isn't worth that price any longer, is any of that money on the option year guaranteed to the player or is it simply counted just as salary so if the player is cut he just loses all that money?

We weren't setup to do "options". From the start when we decided to try to integrate this it was just going to be a large salary only increase that last year with no guaranteed money with signing bonus expired before that last year. It would be like any player with no signing bonus and a large salary for that year.

[tino38]

Alright thank you. Wasn't quite sure how that worked with these.

[charlie813brown]

I just don't understand the logic. I draft a guy in the 1st round, he is a good player, but not worth 8 million a year. I have to cut him, losing all FA rights for unlimited bids to him. I draft a guy in the 2nd round (33rd overall), i get him for 4 years and then he becomes a FA, i get unlimited rights to bid on him. If this is the case going forward, couldn't the argument be made that 2nd round picks are actually more valuable because we keep FA rights for them, whereas 1st rounders we don't.

Also, if a player is drafted in the 1st round and then cut and claimed through waivers, isn't that option obviously not picked up and therefore the player should be without that 5th year option?

[charlie813brown]

http://mmqb.si.com/2014/05/02/nfl-2011- ... ar-option/

"The four-year term mentioned above can turn to five years at the team’s discretion. In the prior rookie pay system, teams and players negotiated “buy backs” of additional contract years, often for significant compensation to the player. The new CBA eliminated such bells and whistles from these deals but does permit teams to add a year to first-round contracts without buying it. Article VII, Section 7(a) of the CBA allows teams to apply a fifth-year to first-round contracts, provided it is exercised before May 3 of the player’s fourth season, with salary as follows:

For players picked 1-10, the transition tag for their position in their fourth year (thus, the 2014 transition tag for 2011 picks);
For players picked 11-32, the average salary of players ranked 3rd-25th in salary for that position.

For star players—such as Newton or J.J. Watt in this year’s group—the option equates to a free franchise tag at a price far below the real tag (teams can still apply the tag in the player’s sixth year). Even for lesser players, there is little risk in extending the contract for an extra year with no up front cost. Let me explain"

This really makes it seem like i should be able to DECLINE the option without cutting the player.

[RebelFan]

Sorry to drag up an old, unresolved thread. Just wondering what number these 5th year options are based on?
It seems to be less than the franchise or transition tags. LTC rate for the player shows up at just over $5M, but his 5th year option is $9M. So I'm just trying to figure out how we arrived at that number. Is it just based on an older, lower transition tag number maybe?

And also, I know rules discussions are pretty much over at this point, but I've gotta say, this inflated 5th year salary destroys any value in using the LTC option because it always defaults to the 20% higher salary of the existing inflated 5th year salary.
Now maybe it's by design, so that we have to pay a sort of market value for the player, but what it actually does (in the instance that it's a high level player worth high salary) is make me more likely to keep the guy on at the 5th year salary instead of signing him to an extension as would happen in reality.
We know real players will always favor an extension with the added financial security over the option of having a franchise-tag like unguaranteed salary. And teams in reality are going to want to extend a high level player as opposed to keeping him on for one extra year at the unguaranteed high salary (fifth year option).
If this arrangement is set up for ease and convenience of administration then it's working just fine.
If it's set up to mimic reality as most all of our other policies are, I believe it fails to do so.
The fact that I could LTC a 2nd rounder with the same rating and get a pretty good deal, but my first rounder I have to pay franchise tag prices to do the same thing, really makes the 5th year option, and really, 1st rounders altogether much less appealing.
Maybe if we could make the system ignore the 5th year salary in figuring LTC then it would work better and be a bit more realistic. Then it wouldn't feel so much like punishment for having drafted a 1st rounder.
So, maybe I'm beating a dead horse after all of the discussions previously but just adding my 2 cents here.

[Goodell]

Sorry to drag up an old, unresolved thread. Just wondering what number these 5th year options are based on?
It seems to be less than the franchise or transition tags. LTC rate for the player shows up at just over $5M, but his 5th year option is $9M. So I'm just trying to figure out how we arrived at that number. Is it just based on an older, lower transition tag number maybe?

Players drafted in 2011 when it first started had values for those amounts set on tag figures at that time years ago. They've been at that amount within the contract signed at that time for years with teams able to make decisions on that player's future with them based upon that value. That was our solution for integrating the new first rounder option at the time for those players. Salary entered at that time for that 5th future year with those values, and teams would have to pay or cut the player at that time (with no cap hit, simulating the option choice).

With first rounders afterward I used placeholders instead (99,999,999 for top 10 picks and 88,888,888 for 11-32 overall picks), with the intention that we could somehow do more with programming down the road with those.

I've been working earlier tonight on integrating that within the area at the bottom of team rosters for tagging, where they'd also see any first rounder options for next year and could accept them or decline (zeroing out that option year allowing them to become UFAs after this season for team). It's been problematic, but getting closer to integrating and will hopefully post something soon on that.

Likely it will be... if you have a 2011 first round pick with a high salary this year we'll let you contact me before free agency starts to not have picked up this option and zero out their salary making them a UFA for your team. For 2012 picks with placeholder values for next year, a system in place on team roster page soon to accept or decline those options to change the placeholder to a value for next year (either a high salary option pickup or zero it so contract expires after this season).

The new also will probably be a more simplified approach with numbers based upon tag values for this year applied to options for next year. I'm open to hearing more on that, but league management not really looking for something overly complicated for gameplay or administration. More specific real values may not always be published by all positions and we often make choices to simplify some of the overwhelming real details into more simplified approaches that are more manageable her but still within the spirit of the reality simulated. In reality picks 1-10 get transition tag value for their position I believe. Picks 11-32 get an averaged salary of players 3-25 at their position. In the absence of absolute certainty those figures will be published and easily available to us every year to base a system upon, we'll probably do something simplified there based around transition tag values and possibly an adjustment down from that for lower picks. In researching a couple of them, for lower first round picks with options picked up it seems around 2/3 value of the transition tag so we may use something like that universally.

Whether teams pick up those options or not is their decision. One way or the other, many top players will eventually get tagged or those type of values applied to them. The league believes it may even be better if many 1st round options not picked up and players put onto the market for value determination, but knows many teams are very interested in using tags and whatever options they have available to them to keep as many of their players and avoid market bidding wars so expect many will be picked up for players worthy.

If prices get too high down those paths for some players, it's just like the NFL with Detroit and Ndamukong Suh. Rules pushed up his tag value too high to realistically be applied so brought him to the market. Happens in reality, happens here. Those guys go to the market and capitalism determines new value.

[RebelFan]

Sounds good Commish! Thanks for all of your hard work!

[vikingfan]

It is what it is. Either way. Christian Ponder will have his option declined.

[Jared A]

Once picked up, are these contracts guaranteed?

[Goodell]

Once picked up, are these contracts guaranteed?

No, it's just regular salary for next year just like any other contract. There's no guaranteed signing bonus to these option choices.

The only way it could become guaranteed was if the player stayed on the team through next off-season and was playing the next year regular season as a veteran at that salary amount. Then the usual veteran guarantees during a season after week 1 of a season would kick in.

But for 2012 draft picks, if option picked up it becomes unguaranteed 2016 salary. They could be cut next off-season without cap hit. If option not picked up, 2016 salary turns to zero and their contract just expires a year early after 2015 making them UFA for their team next off-season with the usual UFA home team advantages.