2017 Off-Season Update

[soonertf]

I like it as well. I think it's going to work out just fine. I think the minimums are pretty small or at least they seemed to be on the guys I was outbid on

[soonertf]

When will secret bidding be turned back on? Now that most UDFA's have been signed, is this something we can think about?

[Ben C.]

The plan would be for signing soon to be off with several June 1st changes that get the league into more regular season mode. It's something to think about whether it should be on/off during this UDFA competition with cap limits, but I think we'll learn a lot about how this goes and possible changes to it from next year for the UDFA game within a game.

This got buried in the thread.

[soonertf]

Thanks Ben. I totally missed that.

[Goodell]

Now that it's June 1st, a couple of things have changed.

- Free agency has moved into a more secretive mode with no more signing soon or indication of bids by other teams (unless you click onto a player's bid page). It'll remain that way through the NFL season until next peak off-season.

- Unlimited cap hit splits for trades/cuts.

- No more UDFA cap, all UDFAs have been converted to regular UFAs.

- You're now allowed to trade 2019 picks.

[jerrydlux]

We starting anything soon? Signing players or anything to get the world right again with football?

[DaltonC]

Madden ratings for every 2017 first-round pick http://es.pn/2uy45Ae
via @ESPN App http://es.pn/app

[Goodell]

We starting anything soon? Signing players or anything to get the world right again with football?

Yeah, now that training camps are underway I'll start to get back into football mode and hope to auto-sign the lower round draft picks in the next week.

[Goodell]

Teams should be able to click the sign pick links next to their 1st and 2nd round picks now. The league automatically signed 3-7th round picks previously. You'll only be able to sign contracts if fit within your salary cap.

For teams that don't sign their picks themselves, the league will automatically sign those players to their teams (if cap room) toward the start of the regular season. For teams that can't ever fit a draft pick contract in under the cap all season, such draft picks will be lost and the player returning to our draft next year. So sign your picks or lose your 1st/2nd rounder.

I'll shift things into 53-man roster mode about 2 weeks prior to the regular season. At that point we'll have a big push for all teams starting to get down to their final 53 man rosters. The deadline for that is the start of the NFL season on September 7th. So less than a month away.

If you have less than 53 players right now, keep in mind those empty roster spot charges will come in at that time, so make sure you have cap space for that or sign more actual players to avoid the empty roster spot default salaries.

Reminder that all NFL veterans who make your 53 man roster going into sim week 1 will have their annual salaries guaranteed all year, so keep that in mind when making cut decisions. Veterans signed after week 1 once the regular season underway do not have their salaries guaranteed and are on a prorated salary basis.

[Goodell]

Quick note for those new. When you sign a first round pick you'll see a very large placeholder value in their last year of the contract (99,999,999 or 88,888,888). Those trigger 5th year options, highest for top 10 picks at future tag-based prices. Will someday get those replaced with word "option" but for now just FYI if you see that and are new to the league. You won't be paying 99 million for the player in their 5th year, but will have an option for keeping them for extra year at to-be-determined then franchise tag-based values.