2024 RULES: Free Agency (regular season immediate pickup)

[Goodell]

One of my goals this off-season is to change some of our roster admin programming to get away from the 55-man roster with only 53 counting against the cap (our way of implementing the 2 psquad guys who can be on active roster) to a hard 53-man roster and some kind of mechanism to designate two practice squaders as active roster players. I'll also look at programming to allow pquad veterans but limit the number like the NFL rules to my understanding.

I think that would generally be supported and make the cap calculations less complicated (now moving players on/off can shift whose counting in the top 53 and who isn't making the math more difficult with multiple factors). It brings in realism and especially helpful in situations like a kicker being hurt right before a game and ruled out with quick replacement needed, etc.

However there could be new issues with that. Practice squad players can be signed by any team any time, so if you're planning on having player X and player Y off your psquad active for your upcoming games, just takes your opponent signing those guys to their active roster to throw a wrench into that and have you scramble to replace them with different guys called up or perhaps adding new guys to psquad for those positions planned.

Additionally, a recent suggestion called for changing free agency during the season to eliminate the 24-hour delay and have them signed immediately. Perhaps only allowing 1-year minimum contracts during the regular season to immediately be put into play. If we allowed any first offer to be accepted without counter-bids, teams just could cut high priced players in the regular season and immediately sign them for any offer that couldn't be countered so that probably wouldn't work. But if we did first come-first-serve in regular season I could see that with just 1-year minimum offers, as most of the baseball sim leagues I'm in I think do that in season. We'd have to think more about how a high priced guy cut in the season would be handled to prevent teams from cutting all their higher priced veterans and replacing their big contracts with minimum contracts without any counter-bids, or if only certain street guys were available for immediate 1-year minimum deals but how we'd handle players cut for money saving intentions.

An impact of changing free agency in regular season to no counter-bids or delays, for better or worse, would mean any lesser-known player who has a big NFL game and is available in free agency here creates just a massive race to see who gets to the site first to get the immediate contract without any other bids or delay instead of the 24-hour bidding process now where everyone would have an opportunity to try to sign them.

We could additionally apply some protections to practice squad players designed as active roster participants, as I believe the NFL has some kind of limited practice squad protections also from the pandemic time that may still be in play. If we didn't protect them and had instant signings by other teams, opponents could easily snipe psquad guys called up as injury replacements instantly.

[sillegrant]

I know this a bit unrelated to this topic but, in the interest of realism, could we consider having practice squad players count against the cap like they do in real life? Its less than a minimum salary and for a full Psquad for a full season is just shy of 6 million for 2023, though I'm sure it will go up a touch next year. This might benefit players rebuilding with an abundance of cap space/better money managers more and result in more turnover in free agency.

Just a thought.

[tino38]

I know this a bit unrelated to this topic but, in the interest of realism, could we consider having practice squad players count against the cap like they do in real life? Its less than a minimum salary and for a full Psquad for a full season is just shy of 6 million for 2023, though I'm sure it will go up a touch next year. This might benefit players rebuilding with an abundance of cap space/better money managers more and result in more turnover in free agency.

Just a thought.

This is already being factored in under cap hits. It’s part of the $5M cap hit we all have on our financials. It’s not to far off. Practice squad players make $12,000 per week or for 18 weeks $216,000.

[robroach]

I thought this is why we went to 55 on the active roster.

[sportznut]

Perhaps if a team cuts a guy midseason, they can't re-sign them to their active roster until a week (or two) passes? Other teams could sign that player within that time period, but not the time cutting that player.

[Goodell]

CONCLUSION: Per popular support, we'll look to adjust how we do the 53/55 man roster before the start of the regular season and make it more like a 53 man roster plus a practice squad that allows teams to activate two additional players for games more like reality and if a psquad player is activated he cannot be signed by another team. Transactions got tricky to calculate financially with 55-man rosters with only the top 53 counting, as a move might shift who makes up the top 53 and that makes the transaction more involved than just the player being signed for cap impact. This should simplify that and make it more realistic and provide teams more practice squad activation flexibility by need from game-to-game. We'll likely do this by making another type of player status (like active or practice squad, but two guys who can be activated psquad) that you can select/adjust from the roster pull-down.