2018 Off-Season Update

[tino38]

Turning on trades is always a little tricky, but I believe we're ready to turn on trades now. Let me know if you notice any problems. Thanks and happy trading.

Thanks for your work, Troy!

[Goodell]

As previously announced, Free Agency gets started Saturday 4/28 morning at 10 AM ET. For those new to the leagues or forgot how things go, here are a couple reminders. New GMs can also refer to previously sent welcoming messages with details on league activities.

Teams get UNLIMITED bidding toward their own UFAs on the market, and 5 bids per 24 hours to put toward other players. After 24 hours, a used bid becomes available again. There's nothing more frustrating than putting in your 5 bids immediately first thing only to see them all countered and no longer leading bids by mid morning with no other bids until the next day. Some have different strategies probably, but sometimes it can be effective to space your bids out a bit after seeing how the market is going, what players are in crazy demand, and being the team that gets out of the first day on top instead of the team that had an all their early bids countered.

A UFA is signed when he goes without a counter bid for 24 hours. Restricted free agents (RFA) or tagged players are signed to offersheets after 24 hours without a counter bid, but their home team has a chance to match or receive compensation in some cases. Always read the bid page completely, especially in cases of RFA or tagged players that have certain conditions and compensation required for bidding that is listed on their page. Often in those cases you may have to give up a draft pick if you sign a restricted/tagged player. If a player has an original round tender, check their actual NFL draft round for the required compensation (not sim draft round). I'll try to get around to updating those as time allows.

Once turned on, free agency will never be turned off until the end of the regular season in January. It's always available to shop players throughout the off-season and regular season. During peak free agency starting tomorrow you'll be able to see what players have bids and rough signing time deadlines before they'll sign, as we do that in peak free agency to try to ensure players get their fair market price. Some things change after peak free agency is over when free agency becomes much more secretive for the rest of the season to reward teams that do their research on training camp gems instead of just cherry-picking other team bids.

Depending upon your situation, you may want to pay close attention to the UFA gain/loss chart on the front of the league homepages (and on your team roster page) once free agency starts. That determines which lost UFAs get compensatory picks in the 2019 draft or not. Only teams with more UFA losses listed than gains are even eligible for picks, and only the top 32 UFA losses whose team didn't have a similarly graded UFA gain to balance that out will get picks. Street free agents without teams, RFAs, and tagged players DO NOT factor into compensatory picks -- only UFAs from other teams with unlimited bidding rights. So it helps you with compensatory picks in next year's draft to let some of your UFAs sign with other teams (despite your unlimited bidding rights) and sign street free agents without home team unlimited bidding affiliations.

There are no do-overs in free agency. Especially if you are giving a player GUARANTEED signing bonus money, make sure you do your research. Check their rotoworld page, do a google news search. There's no hurry, take your time and enter wisely. Make sure you're bidding on the right player and not someone with the same name. We honor real NFL retirements, suspensions, injuries, etc. Grades listed are grades from last year, and madden grades can sometimes change significantly from year to year plus grades are updated weekly throughout the season with performance. Be smart with your money, and careful with guaranteed signing bonuses especially as there is no way out of those at all. You're going to pay 100% of that one way or another and cannot transfer signing bonuses to anyone else.

It's a good idea probably to save yourself about $2M+ under the cap for in-season transactions as it's more difficult to clear cap space during the season when injuries happen. I'll also be adding estimated draft pick values, but in the meantime you can research a player drafted in that slot last year and look at their contract. Don't over spend in free agency or you won't be able to afford your draft picks.

We also carry over some unused cap space from year to year to a max of 10M. So if you're 10M under the cap at the end of this season, you'll get that 10M next year. If your 50M under the cap, you still only get 10M carried over.

If you are unsure about something, please send me a PM. Better to ask than make a mistake that can't be undone. Thanks and happy hunting!

[Goodell]

Free Agency is now underway...

[Goodell]

With peak free agency slowing down, the last day to bid on tagged or RFA players will be Friday, May 11th. That will also be the last day for unlimited bidding for your own free agents.

[Aftermath2531]

What are the rules concerning restricted free agent bidding? You've always said a player will not except a pay cut but in FFFL we've had 2 players signed for well under there tender amount and 2 more signing soon.It doesn't really make sense and raises some eyebrows to why a owner would place a minimum bid on a restricted free agent.

[Goodell]

What are the rules concerning restricted free agent bidding? You've always said a player will not except a pay cut but in FFFL we've had 2 players signed for well under there tender amount and 2 more signing soon.It doesn't really make sense and raises some eyebrows to why a owner would place a minimum bid on a restricted free agent.

That phrase relates to league-generated LTCs outside of a free bidding market. Players take less money all the time in a free market depending upon bid interest from year to year. We don't say this UFA made $X last year on his deal so cannot accept bids for less than what we made last year on the free market.

It's arguably subjective whether a player would prefer longer-term multi-year security or a higher 1-year short-term price. I suppose in the past we've left things somewhat up to free markets to prevent under-valued deals. The best advise for situations where teams think someone else is getting too good a deal is to counter it in a free market. That's what our free markets with all teams able to bid is all about.

There were no changes to RFAs this year. It's the same as it's been every year. The only restrictions on that is the information listed on the bid page for RFAs. Of course we wouldn't change rules now in the middle of the game. But may possibly consider changes for future seasons.

If there are new situations happening related to RFAs that are potentially unwanted in the game, I could see us adding more simple restrictions on the bidding there in the future for future seasons. Even for bids on tagged players, though, we allow bids at lower than the tag amount (75%) to allow teams to add more guaranteed money in hopes of trying to convince home team not to match.

People bidding less than a team is willing to pay otherwise for these players would be foolish in my opinion as very likely to be matched (since they are already willing to pay more). The idea with bidding on player with matching rights is to make a bid they won't be able to match. If things are happening behind the scenes trying to get around things and manipulate salaries for less, that's something to look at.

I could see us changing RFA bids in future seasons to go along with the tag restrictions on being at least 75% of the tender salary.

[Aftermath2531]

I'm saying something needs to be put in place in the future to prevent collusion. No player is going to except a 1yr 450k offer after being tendered at 1.9m. David Irving wouldn't except 760k and 1m sb after being tendered at a 2nd round for 2.9mil. Its not just one player, its potentially 4. The idea that restricted free agents are the same as UFA's doesn't make sense. Most restricted free agents receive one or two enticing offers that are well above there tender. Why would a team bid under the tender amount knowing the other team would just match and save money. Makes no sense!

[simpson]

I'm saying something needs to be put in place in the future to prevent collusion. No player is going to except a 1yr 450k offer after being tendered at 1.9m. David Irving wouldn't except 760k and 1m sb after being tendered at a 2nd round for 2.9mil. Its not just one player, its potentially 4. The idea that restricted free agents are the same as UFA's doesn't make sense. Most restricted free agents receive one or two enticing offers that are well above there tender. Why would a team bid under the tender amount knowing the other team would just match and save money. Makes no sense!

I offered Irving that contract, and I did it because if I had to give up a 2nd; I wanted to try to get it at a bargain. NE is short on cap and has needs else where. Didn't think they'd match but also thought someone would come over the top.

[Aftermath2531]

I'm saying something needs to be put in place in the future to prevent collusion. No player is going to except a 1yr 450k offer after being tendered at 1.9m. David Irving wouldn't except 760k and 1m sb after being tendered at a 2nd round for 2.9mil. Its not just one player, its potentially 4. The idea that restricted free agents are the same as UFA's doesn't make sense. Most restricted free agents receive one or two enticing offers that are well above there tender. Why would a team bid under the tender amount knowing the other team would just match and save money. Makes no sense!

I offered Irving that contract, and I did it because if I had to give up a 2nd; I wanted to try to get it at a bargain. NE is short on cap and has needs else where. Didn't think they'd match but also thought someone would come over the top.

I understand your thought process but he was already paying Irving 2.9mil as it was built in to his cap. So he saved 1.8mil by matching. The other examples in FFFL are far worse.

[soonertf]

I agree. The offer needs to exceed the one year tender in total value. We have the tool already as it's used to see if a FA bid exceeds the current bid, so I think it would be easy to put into place.