2015 Off-Season Update

[Adam K]

Another update... I've activated the franchise/transition/RFA options on your team roster pages. You can't hit submit just yet, but at least can look at those figures and think about the options there with more detail. I'll turn the submit option for decisions probably tomorrow. Want to first make sure no problems there before people start submitting, so let me know if you see anything.

Also, you can now click on the LTC link on your team roster page. That'll show you LTC contract values you'll be able to select soon. That's also not submittable at the moment, just shows you the information for me to give it a little time to ensure it's as it should be, then we'll turn that fully on also probably later tomorrow.

So decisions can start to be finalized in those regards this weekend.

LTC contracts have always thrown me off. Let's say someone is under contract and the LTC is $8 million for 3 years. Is that the total including the SB or is that just the base and the SB is extra? Plus if the player is signed for a year already, and you sign him to that 3-year LTC - does it count as an extension - so he is now signed through 4 years? Is the new SB spread out over 4 years?

[Goodell]

LTC contracts have always thrown me off. Let's say someone is under contract and the LTC is $8 million for 3 years. Is that the total including the SB or is that just the base and the SB is extra? Plus if the player is signed for a year already, and you sign him to that 3-year LTC - does it count as an extension - so he is now signed through 4 years? Is the new SB spread out over 4 years?

I'll take a look at making that clearer on those pages. If it says it's $8M in salary value, there are multiple options for signing bonus. Signing bonus is all in addition to the base salary. You can go from a smaller signing bonus for a shorter deal, to a larger signing bonus for a longer one. Either way, it's X annual salary + a signing bonus on top of that (spread out over the years of the deal).

If a player isn't a pending free agent but has a year left, it'll over-write his existing deal. For us, players can only have one contract in the system. Old contract ripped up and the new contract takes it's place immediately upon signing. That goes for salary. If SB still left on the old deal, it'll get tacked onto the new deal for total SB as SB is guaranteed money you have to pay no matter what.

[Goodell]

Teams should now be able to select their tagged player (if any), RFA tender amounts, as well as sign their 1 LTC this season. More will be available in the coming days as announced as ready. Cutting players will probably be available soon.

If you're unsure or have questions, please wait and think about it more or ask questions before making moves with tag decisions. There will be at least 2 weeks+ until free agency (date pending) so there's time. If you're unfamiliar, please read through all the notes regarding decisions on those pages before pushing submit and ask any questions before taking action if unsure. Just send me a PM.

[Goodell]

Teams should now be able to cut players. Do not cut players marked as UFAs with your team (as that would take away your unlimited bidding for those players and any compensatory picks). Cutting a player now strips all ties to your team, making them a street free agent, giving you no unlimited bidding rights for them. The only reason you should cut players now would be salary dumps for players you're not all that interested in having on your team next year. 2015 salary and beyond will go away as it's not guaranteed, but any signing bonus left (SB Left) is guaranteed and will be a cap hit. It's either all against this year's cap or you can split over 2 years, but you're limited to only 2 of those before June 1st as in the NFL. Send me a PM if you have questions PRIOR to making moves you're not sure about.

FIFTH YEAR OPTION FOR FIRST ROUNDERS:
Teams should now also be able to see a new option at the bottom of their team roster if they have first rounders from 2012 draft that have placeholder amounts (99,999,999 or 88,888,888) for a future year. Teams can now choose to accept a 5th year option for those players -- replacing that placeholder amount with a transition tag value for top 10 picks, or 2/3 of a transition tag value for lower first round picks.

In the NFL the deadline for picking up an option for the next year is May 3, 2015. For our purposes for efficient league operation, it makes sense that this decision made during this time before the new year starts up while other free agency decisions registered. So deadline is the same as tagging decisions, must be made prior to our free agency starting.

In reality first round picks 1-10 get transition tag value for their position while picks 11-32 get an averaged salary of players 3-25 at their position. For efficient league operations since those figures aren't always going to be available to us to base this system upon, we researched some of the 5th year options for lower first round picks and found many of them around that 2/3 value so we're using that universally for simplicity.

If you have a 2011 first round draft pick (Cam Newton, Von Miller... Derek Sherrod http://www.nfl.com/draft/history/fulldraft?season=2011 ) with a high current year salary, you can send me a PM to have not picked up that option making them a UFA now. When entering the contracts for 2011 first rounders we weren't using placeholder values yet. Or just cut them if you wish to rid them of your roster.

Cutting players was delayed a bit in part so that teams wouldn't start cutting 2011 first rounders before we finished knowing if we could implement this 5th year option tool so that all players for all eligible drafts could have that choice available equally.

[Goodell]

We'll pencil in the start of free agency now:
Monday morning April 13th at 8am ET

All tags, RFA decisions, first round 5th year options must be set by 4/12 end of day ET. Teams must also be under the salary cap by that time or they won't be able to place bids.

Contract restructurings and trades will be the next roster management tools activated. Trades will be available the weekend prior to free agency starting at the latest.

That 4/13 date is just in pencil now, subject to change depending upon other factors leading up to that time, but we'll work toward that. It's just about the same start as last year and should give us time to finish up peak free agency activity prior to the NFL draft.

[jerrydlux]

Cuts still frozen in CFFL.

[Goodell]

Cuts still frozen in CFFL.

Thanks. Should be updated now.

[jmondo]

The "Restructure" option is showing up Blank...

Has that been implemented yet ?

[Goodell]

The "Restructure" option is showing up Blank...

Has that been implemented yet ?

Not yet.

[Goodell]

Restructuring contracts is now available. It's a limit of 2 per team per season, and this year per rules discussions we'll also allow teams to do an extra restructuring if needed that'll be added once the regular season starts when creating cap space becomes much more difficult.