2021 Off-Season Update

[Goodell]

Undrafted free agents who weren't selected in our recent college drafts are now in free agency. Just click the UDFA link there. See more information about those a couple posts above for the 100K signing bonus cap for UDFAs.

[Goodell]

With June 1st approaching next week, keep a couple things in mind.

- If you have a player with a ROSTER BONUS (RB) those will be permanently counted against your cap this season if they are on your roster come June 1st. If you cut or trade them later, you're still going to be charged for that roster bonus that gets paid if they are on your roster June 1st. So if you're not sure of a player with a big roster bonus, decide before then or you'll be stuck paying the RB amount no matter what this season.

- After June 1st you can make cuts/trades with unlimited cap hits (SB Left) split over two seasons.

[Goodell]

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.

Note that free agency has been updated as noted above and will remain that way for the rest of the year.

[Goodell]

Football training camps are in full swing. We've got our first pre-season exhibition game on Thursday. Exciting to see NFL football again! Needed that off-season break, though... Hopefully everyone's having a great summer.

I believe I heard that all NFL draft pick rookies were also signed, so we'll have complete rookie contract info.

Heads up that I am going to start signing draft picks this week. The league signs all draft picks between rounds 3-7 automatically. We don't have 7th round holdouts unrealistically.

Once I do that, teams will be able to sign their 1st and 2nd rounders themselves — if they have the cap space to do so. If you never get around to having cap space to sign those draft picks this season, you will lose them for nothing and they'll return to our draft next year. Please contact me if you're having cap issues and need ideas/help resolving.

If you anticipate salary cap problems and don't really want your 3rd-7th round draft picks signed (all having some guaranteed signing bonus money), you can either cut or trade them prior to that without any salary cap implications. I hope to auto-sign those lower picks mid-week ahead.

[Goodell]

Football training camps are in full swing. We've got our first pre-season exhibition game on Thursday. Exciting to see NFL football again! Needed that off-season break, though... Hopefully everyone's having a great summer.

I believe I heard that all NFL draft pick rookies were also signed, so we'll have complete rookie contract info.

Heads up that I am going to start signing draft picks this week. The league signs all draft picks between rounds 3-7 automatically. We don't have 7th round holdouts unrealistically.

Once I do that, teams will be able to sign their 1st and 2nd rounders themselves — if they have the cap space to do so. If you never get around to having cap space to sign those draft picks this season, you will lose them for nothing and they'll return to our draft next year. Please contact me if you're having cap issues and need ideas/help resolving.

If you anticipate salary cap problems and don't really want your 3rd-7th round draft picks signed (all having some guaranteed signing bonus money), you can either cut or trade them prior to that without any salary cap implications. I hope to auto-sign those lower picks mid-week ahead.

We've had our first taste of NFL football, and it's time for our sim teams to start their own training camp and roster cut down preparations.

The league has signed all 3rd-7th rounders to contracts similar to those NFL draft slots. You can now also click to sign your own 1st and 2nd round picks -- if you have the cap space to do so.

If you are having salary cap problems, look into your contract restructuring options or trading/cutting players with large 2021 unguaranteed salaries and low/no signing bonuses, and you can always contact me if you need additional advise on salary cap problems. Teams will get one additional contract restructure once we get closer to the regular season to use if they need cap space in season when it's more difficult to create cap space.

Teams can have 90 players in the off-season (only top 53 cap values count toward the cap), but have to cut down to their regular season rosters before the NFL regular season starts.

Ready for some football!

[Goodell]

FYI I am integrating the Madden 22 new grades onto the site. I found a spreadsheet to use, but I think some names were missing so going through those more to fill in the gaps.

[Goodell]

We add an extra contract restructure option for teams in the regular season because it's much more difficult to create cap space once players start getting paychecks and veteran salaries become guaranteed. With the salary cap going down this year and some teams facing more challenges in that area, I've added that extra contract restructure now as teams start to get ready for the season and roster deadlines.

All teams have to be at the roster limits and under their salary caps prior to the start of the regular season fairly. We won't sim any games until that's the case, and I can work with any team that's having trouble in those areas. Having an additional contract restructure will hopefully help some.

[Knighty Knight]

Goodell, could you outline how roster limits will work for the upcoming season?

It appears active roster limits are 53 and 16 for practice squads with the ability to shuttle 2 between PS and active roster during the week, which is why we set active roster at 55. That should mean PS limit is 14. I've included some of the changes that are being carries over into the new season below. I don't know if we want to address having the one related to having 6 players with more than two accrued seasons eligible for PS.

• Expansion of practice squads to 16 players, including up to six who have more than two accrued seasons.

• The ability to protect up to four practice squad players per week from being signed by other teams.

• Elevation of up to two practice squad players to the active roster, without removing any current players, before 4 p.m. ET the day before a game.

• Elevation of an additional practice squad player within 90 minutes before kickoff in the event of a late COVID-19 positive test result.

• Players placed on injured reserve can return after three weeks, rather than six as in normal seasons.

• Removal of the limit for how many players can be activated from injured reserve.

[Goodell]

Goodell, could you outline how roster limits will work for the upcoming season?

It appears active roster limits are 53 and 16 for practice squads with the ability to shuttle 2 between PS and active roster during the week, which is why we set active roster at 55. That should mean PS limit is 14. I've included some of the changes that are being carries over into the new season below. I don't know if we want to address having the one related to having 6 players with more than two accrued seasons eligible for PS.

• Expansion of practice squads to 16 players, including up to six who have more than two accrued seasons.

• The ability to protect up to four practice squad players per week from being signed by other teams.

• Elevation of up to two practice squad players to the active roster, without removing any current players, before 4 p.m. ET the day before a game.

• Elevation of an additional practice squad player within 90 minutes before kickoff in the event of a late COVID-19 positive test result.

• Players placed on injured reserve can return after three weeks, rather than six as in normal seasons.

• Removal of the limit for how many players can be activated from injured reserve.

In our setup, we can't treat practice squad players different or track one type of practice squad player versus another and so many of a certain kind, etc. We also wouldn't have it where some are protected and some aren't. Maybe someday if that becomes a permanent thing in the NFL, but we aren't setup for tools for designating some for that and some not or tracking which ones, etc.

For total number of psquaders, we'll go with the NFL total on that and all of them would have to be the same for eligibility, etc.

Right about us having 55 man rosters instead of 53 because of the elevation of two. We'll treat that like last year where they are just on the active 55 man roster, but only 53 counting toward cap. That also provides some of that some practice squad player protected from other teams signing element as they'd be on active roster here and not on the market.

For IR, it's the same as always too. If they are on the IR in NFL during the season, they're eligible for IR here too and marked out for games. If they are re-activated from IR, and sounds like there may be more of those this year, as soon as they are re-activated they are eligible for that here too. Anybody and any amount can go onto IR and anybody can come off, so long as it lines up with their NFL status.

[Knighty Knight]

For total number of psquaders, we'll go with the NFL total on that and all of them would have to be the same for eligibility, etc.

Right about us having 55 man rosters instead of 53 because of the elevation of two. We'll treat that like last year where they are just on the active 55 man roster, but only 53 counting toward cap. That also provides some of that some practice squad player protected from other teams signing element as they'd be on active roster here and not on the market.

Thanks for the reply. When you say that we'll go with the NFL total for psquaders, that would mean 16. 53 on active + 16 ps in the NFL would total 69 players. Can you verify that we are going with 55 active + 14 ps for our purposes here, which equals the same 69 player total between the two squads in the NFL. Otherwise, I interpret what you said as 55 + 16, which would essentially give us all two additional roster spots with zero impact on ps number.