Off-Season Rules Discussion

[Onyxgem]

Technically UFAs cannot be LTC'd. Only pending UFAs who will have their contracts expire this off-season. Once free agency hits and players become actual UFAs available on the market, they can no longer be LTC'd. That has to happen before free agency.

The pending UFAs can't be LTC'd thing support kind of surprises me. I guess because we didn't used to have LTCs (everyone was UFA and teams had to just rely upon unlimited bidding advantage) but introduced them mostly as a way for a team to sign their own pending free agents before they hit the market, like real teams do and not have to only rely upon bidding advantages. We added being able to sign a guy to LTC a year early before free agency kind of as an afterthought to that primary objective, recognizing that some players sign extensions before their contract runs out.

I'm not sure I fully follow the difference it would make, but if there's a ton of people wanting to not be able to sign your own pending free agents to deals before they hit the market, and making teams do LTCs a year before contract expires, we can put some polls up about that for future season changes (like mentioned, we wouldn't do that this off-season).

I'm completely against this.

A couple of GM's complain and now let's change the whole system.

I agree you should be able to LTC your players up till they are actually UFA's

[jmdaz44]

A couple of GM's complain and now let's change the whole system.

Isn’t that essentially how every rule ever created/changed on here has gotten to the table to be voted on?

I'm fine with voting on it....again.

My guess is it will be the same outcome so it's a waste of time.

Maybe we should vote on every rule in the game to make sure there's support for it and we can start our off season when the real season starts.

Taking away the LTC's rewards the bad teams with tons of salary cap space who use free agency to amass more draft picks.

GM's complain about reality but players get overpaid every year.

Phillip Rivers made 30 million in 2017 in AFFL.

His real cap hit in the NFL was 18 million.

Is that reality or is that "our" market determining his worth?

If you're going to go that far with it you might as well make it unlimited bidding and institute a minimum bottom salary cap that must be maintained at all times while knocking out the ability to trade a player signed in free agency for at least three years.

I agree with a lot of this. Our salaries may not match NFL salaries, but we still have (mostly) free markets determining them. Artificially inflating salaries any further is not the way I think we should go.

Even if raising the LTC salary gains enough support to push it into production, I don't think it should be implemented until 2019. As the holder of pending UFA Matt Ryan in the CFFL, I've been planning on how to handle his contract expiring this whole past season, and it's influenced some moves I made or chose not to make. It'd be pretty crappy to find out now that the cap hit number I've been strategizing around this whole time is now caput. It's probably a good rule of thumb to not implement any major salary changes for the coming season, but for the one afterwards.

[soonertf]

I think by looking at the vote it's safe to say it's not passing this year. I would argue that it doesn't hurt to bring these topics to the table. All changes are at least worth considering and I wouldn't say a waste of time. However I think we should do rule discussions in the dog days of summer June-Aug when nothing else is going on. Then those changes would be put in the following season. I think that would a) give more time to debate and consider and b) be more fair as it gives a year to plan for changes.

On that note, do we have estimated dates for off-season to begin?

[Goodell]

On that note, do we have estimated dates for off-season to begin?

Nothing in stone yet. Thinking will have some functionality on this weekend (setting tags, LTCs) as well as trading possibly next week. Free agency perhaps the week after that. Need to contact GMs who haven't check in yet and see more where we are with gathering everybody up and making replacements. Will know more this weekend.

[VinceO]

OK - Question that applies to the newer leagues...

Dion Jordan was a RL 1st round pick. In EFFL, he just was a guy on the roster. In RFA terms, would his "original round" compensation be that of a 1st round pick or a guy who was just in the league when we started?

[Goodell]

OK - Question that applies to the newer leagues...

Dion Jordan was a RL 1st round pick. In EFFL, he just was a guy on the roster. In RFA terms, would his "original round" compensation be that of a 1st round pick or a guy who was just in the league when we started?

For RFA original round compensation, it's always their NFL draft round.

[JonC]

A couple of GM's complain and now let's change the whole system.

I'm not complaining at all, merely trying to offer a possible solution that is different from the ones we have discussed in recent off-seasons since those weren't widely accepted. I agree that given the options we've discussed in the past, I would vote for no change, but it's tough to argue that pending UFA should receive the same discount that players still under contract receive when you look at deals that have been signed in recent years, especially by QB and WR. Whether those deals are crazy or not are irrelevant if all we care about is the bottom line. I'm not saying that's what I care about, but I like participating in finding solutions when possible.

[tino38]

A couple of GM's complain and now let's change the whole system.

I'm not complaining at all, merely trying to offer a possible solution that is different from the ones we have discussed in recent off-seasons since those weren't widely accepted. I agree that given the options we've discussed in the past, I would vote for no change, but it's tough to argue that pending UFA should receive the same discount that players still under contract receive when you look at deals that have been signed in recent years, especially by QB and WR. Whether those deals are crazy or not are irrelevant if all we care about is the bottom line. I'm not saying that's what I care about, but I like participating in finding solutions when possible.

Lol he wasn’t talking about you, Jon

[jerrydlux]

im not even complaining either...it doesnt affect me. My QB still has two years left so any changes actually hurt me going forward.