2021 Off-Season Update

[Stella]

I'm seeking for 1st and/or 2nd draft picks. In exchange for any of my available players or any players. Please PM. Needing them quick.

[Stella]

Searching for 1st and/or 2nd round draft picks. In exchange or any players of mine, mostly available players. Or future draft picks. Please send offers needing them offers real soon.

Sincerely,
Was GM, Stella

[jerrydlux]

you can post these in the FFFL Forum and chat. As well as in your trade block on your team page

[Stella]

you can post these in the FFFL Forum and chat. As well as in your trade block on your team page

OK thanks

[Goodell]

With the college draft starting on Thursday 5/20 later this week, make sure you check your pick windows to know when your picks are due and rank your players enough for picks you won't be able to make in person.

As free agent compensation for franchise tag and RFAs is from this upcoming draft, all those have to be resolved before the draft. So it's the last chance to enter any bids for tagged or RFA free agents. Come Wednesday I'll clear all of those out and they'll return to their teams on their 1-year tender if they received no bids during peak free agency. This won't apply to many, as you should have already signed your own that you wanted, but that will also be the last time you'll be able to have unlimited bids for your own UFAs as we'll close out peak free agency with the draft. Compensatory picks will be set after that for next year's draft.

I'll probably turn on the drafts a little bit early for the teams at the top just to ensure we don't have any technical glitches with the site move to a new server this year. Like perhaps the night before. But NOBODY is required to make any pick until their picks are due at the assigned pick window.

[Danny - BRFL Packers]

NIGHT BEFORE!

Woooooohoooooooo

[Stella]

Yess, im super siked!

[Goodell]

The draft starts today! Actually all leagues have already gotten in a couple of early picks. Turned it on early to try to make sure no issues and get those ironed out before the wave of picks starting later today and going through the weekend.

If you're new to things, you just click the Draft link at the top and then you'll be at your draft center where you can see when your picks are due and rank players (in case you aren't there to pick). If you miss a pick deadline and don't have any ranked players still available in your draft queue, you'll get the highest unselected player from the NFL draft order.

You may have the chance to pick early if you're online and it's your turn, but you will never have to pick prior to the assigned pick deadline. The times listed aren't when you're starting on the clock, they are when your pick is finally due by at the latest.

Round 1 has 15 minutes per selection and is the only round scheduled on Day 1 today. Round 2 and 3 are tomorrow, with 2 rounds per day through Sunday to finish up, and there are 10 minutes per selection.

You can trade your pick any time before a selection is registered (either by your manual choice or auto pick when time's up). When you are on the clock, a form will appear on the main draft page for you to enter your pick from your player ranking queue.

With smaller salary caps this year, be mindful of the estimated cost of each pick (shown on your team roster and draft page). If you can't afford to sign your draft picks this year, there may be teams willing to exchange next year's picks with you. None of the players selected will be signed right away, but come NFL training camp time when we have most of the rookie contract information we'll automatically sign your 3rd - 7th round selections and you'll be able to click to sign your high profile 1st and 2nd rounders then if you have cap space to do so. Teams that can't sign their draft picks risk losing them entirely into next year's draft if they aren't signed this season.

Once the draft is over, on Monday morning we will turn all the unselected players from your league's draft pool loose onto the free agency market as UDFAs (undrafted free agents). Similar to the NFL, you have a 100K cap for the amount of signing bonus you can give to all your UDFAs, so you'll have to be selective and strategic to get the undrafted players you're targeting on the market. You have to be under the cap and 90 man roster limit to participate in free agency bids for UDFAs or any players on the market.

Let me know if any questions. Happy drafting!

[Goodell]

Once the draft is over, on Monday morning we will turn all the unselected players from your league's draft pool loose onto the free agency market as UDFAs (undrafted free agents). Similar to the NFL, you have a 100K cap for the amount of signing bonus you can give to all your UDFAs, so you'll have to be selective and strategic to get the undrafted players you're targeting on the market. You have to be under the cap and 90 man roster limit to participate in free agency bids for UDFAs or any players on the market.

As mentioned, any undrafted players from our draft pool will go into free agency on Monday morning. We'll start that at:

Monday 5/24 noon ET

A typical UDFA bid might be 660K rookie minimum with a little SB. No UDAFA salary can be over the veteran minimum of 990K with 100K SB max SB.

Remember with UDFAs you only have 100K signing bonus budget for any an ALL your UDFAs, so there's some strategy there to consider.

If you only care about one UDFA, you could give it all to that one player. A bid cannot be raised higher than the max for those.

More realistically, teams may give 30K SB to their top 3 UDFAs and have 10K left for another one.

Once you have used up all your 100K undrafted rookie SB cap, you can still bid on UDFAs, but cannot offer any additional SB, so it's very easy for other teams to counter with a SB and you'd be unable to raise the bidding if you have no more UDFA SB left in your cap. So you may want to not spend all your UDFA cap right away if you want to be able to compete for others ahead.

After June 1st, all UDFAs unsigned will turn to regular UFAs without the rookie SB cap limit associated. After June 1st, we also switch our free agency tool from peak open competition mode listing all bids to more secretive bidding the rest of the season so team's can't cherry pick off other more informed teams once we're out of the peak market times.

[Goodell]

This year the site I used to put the draft data together had fewer names on it than usual. So there may be some real UDFAs you want that aren't in our system yet. I'll be turning off the ability for teams to suggest/add players to the system during UDFA signing time, as I need to do some extra things with those players myself to designate them differently on the market. So if you have a UDFA you want added, just send me a PM with their name, position, college and NFL team that signed them. Thanks!