Off-Season Rules Discussion - Open Mike

[Fargo]

LTC value should be 4-14 instead of 1-10 because the top 3 paid at each position should be the outliers. They should only be included in the franchise tag value calculation.

[JonC]

I may be missing something here and if so please advise but just because some contracts were signed by the GMs choice, doesn't seem like it warrants change just because the players grade fell and now no longer is appropriate for said player. I don't see any GMs wanting to change the LTC system when a player is signed cheap and then the players rating jumps upward and the player is playing at a discounted price though I'm sure the player would greatly appreciate getting a boost in pay for revisions to the system.

This.

Also, some of those outliers could easily end up getting restructured or cut. No one says we have to sign LTCs today...just before FA begins for guys who are ufa, and at any point this season for guys with a year left.

[sportznut]

I agree on the outliers. If any change were made, you'd throw out the highest and lowest salaries, and then average the ones in the middle to get a fair deal.

[JonC]

Looking at LTC further, there is one tweak I would like to suggest:

We currently use previous-year salary but current grade to calculate LTC value for a player. I believe it would be more accurate to use the upcoming season salary and current grade to calculate LTC value.

For example, anyone looking to sign a player rated at SS or FS to an LTC has to deal with Donte Whitner's $10.8MM salary from last year even though he's currently a FA and a C+ rated player. Any owner worth their salt isn't going to base their offer to a solid up-and-coming player on a guy who's now likely going to be a league-minimum backup.

On the flip side, anyone looking to sign a QB long-term will have to deal with seeing Cutler's cap number at $21MM instead of $14MM because of restructuring. (Until he's cut?)

[Jared A]

I've said for a long time, it is much better for LTC's to be TOO expensive than TOO cheap.

[RyanM]

I've said for a long time, it is much better for LTC's to be TOO expensive than TOO cheap.

Agreed

[Onyxgem]

I've said for a long time, it is much better for LTC's to be TOO expensive than TOO cheap.

I'd rather them not be to expensive just as much as I'd rather not let them be to cheap, got to find a happy medium with them IMHO

[soonertf]

I think it works the way it is. You shouldn't be able to lock up talent for cheaper then what FAs are signing for. If GMs want more realistic contracts then we should quit being idiots during Free Agency (myself included )

[BigShaggy]

I think it works the way it is. You shouldn't be able to lock up talent for cheaper then what FAs are signing for. If GMs want more realistic contracts then we should quit being idiots during Free Agency (myself included )

I agree with this idiot

[Goodell]

I'm willing to look at the LTC formula. We tweaked it a little last off-season I believe, and could tweak it a little this year before free agency, but I'm not convinced yet (and haven't had a ton of time to look at examples) that there is a problem to actually fix.

The league's stance always has and always will be that LTCs should not be low priced. If you're going to take away a player's ability to test the market with plenty of teams willing to throw money at them, then it's not on the cheap. I know teams want their players cheap, but the league does not. There is a premium associated with taking players away from the free agent market and keeping them away from other teams here. It's a bonus to pay for that advantage in keeping a player from hitting free agency otherwise, not a discount bin for clearance prices.

Yes there are going to be some cases that hurt some players or teams more than others based upon free agency spending. Guess what? That's reality too. NFL teams have to deal with the fact that some of their players might be eager to sign a LTC at reasonable figures, but others and their sim agents perhaps are more demanding and more difficult to sign before free agency. That's just life for front offices where players are going to want to get their market prices.

Throwing out the highest and lowest from the bunch sounds reasonable and something I'd have to look at several examples of how that impacts the calculations. However, it feels unrealistic that a sim agent would say let's forget about the highest paid player similarly graded to you when determining what we should ask for. There are many things that could be done from numerous suggestions over the years like median instead of mean, including more players in the the average, etc.

I'd like to see some actual examples of bad LTC figures generated that cry out for change. Not just one example for one team, but on the whole in general. There will always be examples of players with super high demands difficult to sign in both reality and sim. We're looking for the best system on the whole.

And while I'm willing to look at examples, and if we find many problems trying different formulas toward all those to see if a better formula emerges, the league isn't looking for ways for teams to keep players away from market prices at discounted rates.