2021 RULES: Suggestions

[JonC]

I mean then next you may want to stop allowing punters and kickers from signing minimum deals with most of us too because that’s not fully realistic too?

Disagree here. And I say this as a guy who just cut JJ Watt in BRFL and then re-signed him to a deal of almost the same total value, but that would drastically lower his LTC number next year. There's not-realistic and then there is finding loopholes in the system. Here, a kicker/punter isn't as valuable as a 3rd string OL. That's not realistic in the least, but because of how our game works, it's not a huge deal overall to league integrity.

One-year, big SB deals not only allow GMs to game the LTC system the following year, but they also don't impact the LTC because SB isn't factored in (for good reason: trades) to the total cost. I think, in some cases, it can be viewed as a valid tactic for a team looking for one main piece, but overall I definitely find it unsettling as a trend.

[sportznut]

Okay, first, my example, and punters and kickers are on two completely different planets.

Not too hard to figure out what I'm talking about, but on more than one occasion this offseason I've seen someone bid on a guy for 5, 6 years with roughly double (or more) the SB for a player who was given a one year, league minimum deal for half the SB.

I think its incredibly unrealistic.

Now to be completely fair, many years ago when Michael Vick got arrested, he was cut from the team that had him in the AFFL. I immediately signed him to a 435K per year deal for 7 years, b/c it was allowed back then. Vick spent two years out of football, but after he came back, I was able to trade him for 3 firsts (after having him one or two years of actual playing time).

It was completely unrealistic, but something I took advantage of the time. At some point after, the rule was changed to include signing bonuses, and I didn't say a peep.

In this particular case, we have a player in his mid 20s being offered a one year deal for half the SB he was offered over 5 years. Find me one example of someone taking that deal.

All I'm doing is bringing light to the issue, and if people disagree with me, I'm not going to sweat it, but to compare that to a punter or kicker is off base.

[sportznut]

I know we're past rules changes for 2021, but I wanted to put this out there, and not start a new thread.

We really need to fix the FA formula, where a GM can put in a bid on a guy at a league minimum one year deal, with a high signing bonus, when that signing bonus is nearly 50% of one offered over a multiyear period.

Established players aren't going to take a one year deal in that case when they're in their 20s. Maybe when they're 40.

The GM is playing within the rules, but its a clear indication that they plan on signing, and trading the player, while eating the entire SB. Yet, the player had another offer out there with nearly double the SB.

I was going to post something similar to this. It's being done for LTC purposes, IMO, and I'd suggest that perhaps we simply don't allow players signed to one-year deals to be eligible for LTC.

Yeah, I immediately thought trade, but sure, you could LTC a guy for cheaper that way also. In the baseball leagues, players signed to one year deals wouldn't be allowed any LTC type benefits.

[Knighty Knight]

I agree sport. I certainly take full advantage of one year deals to sign the players I'm targeting but would like to see the algorithm modified to value longer term contracts. There is certainly an LTC benefit to it as well. However, I use the loop whole to simply win the bid. I'm more willing to overpay for one year than I am for multiple.

I think the solution is modifying how the contract formula works in free agency, not limiting length of contracts. The salary in the first year of the deal should be counted as guaranteed money for those purposes as well.

[sportznut]

I agree sport. I certainly take full advantage of one year deals to sign the players I'm targeting but would like to see the algorithm modified to value longer term contracts. There is certainly an LTC benefit to it as well. However, I use the loop whole to simply win the bid. I'm more willing to overpay for one year than I am for multiple.

I think the solution is modifying how the contract formula works in free agency, not limiting length of contracts. The salary in the first year of the deal should be counted as guaranteed money for those purposes as well.

Right. I wasn't saying to eliminate one year deals, but I thought the formula could use some tweaking to make a multi year deal with more guaranteed money for a 20 something year old makes sense.

[Goodell]

The formulas can be adjusted, and the aim is to always keep improving things each year as needed. I actually wanted to look at that a bit more this off-season, but that was before the whole site blew up and priorities shifted to just getting things back up and working as they had previously. But as everything working again can move toward enhancements.

The bid score now prioritizes guaranteed money over unguaranteed money. Which I think is how it should be in general. It also values the most counting toward the cap per year.

I don't think we'll get to the point of individual situation complex calculations based upon ages, etc. but something to think about. I think it might be overly complex (both for all the programming and understanding of it) to have multiple different formulas for different ages, etc. but maybe.

An easier change to apply to the formula perhaps is just cranking up the importance on the total guaranteed money for the whole contract, and a little less emphasis on the cap cost per season. So if the total guarantees with a longer deal were much more than the 1-year deal, that helped push things toward the longer deal with more guarantees overall. But it's a fine line there, because you don't really want to get to where deals for much less against the cap are winning counter bids or that's something else to reasonably complain about -- Hey they offered a deal for a whole lot less against the cap each season and beat my bid for more against the cap.

So it's tricky to find balance in all the various factors and figure out exactly how people will loophole it, and making many fine tune changes.

After peak free agency ends and we pass June 1st, we may try to tweak the bid scores a little bit. Outside of odd circumstances like this year, will also take another look at things there before next free agency.

[larry linke]

In our hockey league the signing bonus is only allowed to be 50% of the total value of the yearly contract. For example, if a guy signs a 4 year contract at $12 M he is only allowed a SB of $24 M. I am not proposing that but what if the SB couldn't be higher than the yearly salary ?

This didn't affect me but it seems unfair that a contract offer was topped because someone added a roster bonus (non guaranteed money) to the same offer that he topped. I guess my question is does a roster bonus get the same value as a signing bonus in the contract evaluator.

Lastly this one did affect me. Three times last year a guy on my practice squad was signed to a 1 year contract which means if I match it the guy is a free agent at the end of the year. I would like to have the option to make that offer a 3 year offer.

Larry
Minnesota AFFL
Tampa Bay BRFL

[Troy S]

In our hockey league the signing bonus is only allowed to be 50% of the total value of the yearly contract. For example, if a guy signs a 4 year contract at $12 M he is only allowed a SB of $24 M. I am not proposing that but what if the SB couldn't be higher than the yearly salary ?

This didn't affect me but it seems unfair that a contract offer was topped because someone added a roster bonus (non guaranteed money) to the same offer that he topped. I guess my question is does a roster bonus get the same value as a signing bonus in the contract evaluator.

Lastly this one did affect me. Three times last year a guy on my practice squad was signed to a 1 year contract which means if I match it the guy is a free agent at the end of the year. I would like to have the option to make that offer a 3 year offer.

Larry
Minnesota AFFL
Tampa Bay BRFL

Very interested in ideas that maybe work other places.

Unless we change our whole system, though, signing bonus is the only way of offering guaranteed money. Unguaranteed money will never be more valuable than guaranteed money. Even in actual NFL deal discussions about big name signings, the analysts talk about yeah the deal was $100M but really it's 40M because it's 40M guaranteed. The guaranteed matters most. And here, signing bonus is the only guaranteed. I get that rule, but I wouldn't think it would be logical to say you can't offer more guaranteed money than unguaranteed money.

Roster bonus is the same as adding extra unguaranteed salary. Signing bonus is the only guaranteed money and it is factored more than unguaranteed money that can disappear any off-season if a player cut and that money vanishes into thin air versus guaranteed signing bonus money that will be paid 100% and cannot vanish. Guaranteed money > unguaranteed money.

However, a simple tweak to looking at the total guaranteed perhaps more and the annual guaranteed a little less will help with giving multiple year deals more value -- if they also have strong guaranteed money also and not just massive amounts of unguaranteed money that can vanish any time.

The loopholes there, though, may be countering a 1-year bid by just adding an extra year and boosting up the total guarantees a little. Then you get complaints on the other side because the winning bid there would be almost half as much against the cap which shouldn't win either. So it's a balancing act between the value of the highest bids against the cap and the highest overall values. Just takes some tweaking and testing to find the best bid evaluation scoring that fits the most situations best.

[Troy S]

The other factor besides the bid scores will be tweaking with the free agent bid limits. We already have limits like 5 year deals have to have x amount of salary and x amount of SB, etc.

So there may be some simple tweaks to those restrictions there that may help a lot too in conjunction with some bid score adjustments.

[soonertf]

I like the idea that 1 yr deal aren't eligible for LTC or trades for that matter. I find it sad that people keep trying to find loopholes. It's not like we do this for money. Or at least not outside or BRFL