2011 RULES: Salary Floors

[Ryan R]

I don't typically chime in on these much but the question of floor vs no floor: in our format the competitive balance I think is a little different than in the current version of the NFL. I feel like with (sometimes) the changing of GMs/Owners in our league changes certain teams directions from contender to rebuilder to retooler and so on.

If you enforce a floor similar to the CBA here I feel like the teams that feel like they need to desperately rebuild because someone before them did a crappy job and then left are hamstrung because then they'll be forced to spend money on a player that they might not value at that dollar amount. More teams in this league know their current place on the 'success cycle' (rebuild, contend, go for it) and I feel they aggressively pursue their path more so than any NFL team can.

A team, for example, that decides to stockpile picks for the future is hurt by not investing in the current team despite the fact that their current team might not be any good to begin with, how much better can a few free agents at X dollar amount make a team?

I'm not sure this makes as much sense as I wanted it to but just putting my thoughts out there. But I agree teams should have full 53 man rosters.

[Dan M]

I don't typically chime in on these much but the question of floor vs no floor: in our format the competitive balance I think is a little different than in the current version of the NFL. I feel like with (sometimes) the changing of GMs/Owners in our league changes certain teams directions from contender to rebuilder to retooler and so on.

If you enforce a floor similar to the CBA here I feel like the teams that feel like they need to desperately rebuild because someone before them did a crappy job and then left are hamstrung because then they'll be forced to spend money on a player that they might not value at that dollar amount. More teams in this league know their current place on the 'success cycle' (rebuild, contend, go for it) and I feel they aggressively pursue their path more so than any NFL team can.

A team, for example, that decides to stockpile picks for the future is hurt by not investing in the current team despite the fact that their current team might not be any good to begin with, how much better can a few free agents at X dollar amount make a team?

I'm not sure this makes as much sense as I wanted it to but just putting my thoughts out there. But I agree teams should have full 53 man rosters.

I think you'd have the same thing in the real NFL though. When a new GM and coach come in, they are left having to clean up the mess from the previous group and usually have to take the team in a new direction while working within the confines of the cap.

While I understand why some GM's are against adding the cap floor, I do like the idea of it serving as a potential deterrent to GM's completely tanking a season. We've all seen teams do that in this league and it hurts the competitive balance. IRL a GM would be fired if he intentionally tanked a season just to get a top pick.

[Royce R]

I see this being a very good idea if we implement more of a SB. As it stands right now you can sign a person to a huge contract with nothing guaranteed. If a set % of the contract was to be guaranteed it would make this usefull. If not we are just wasting our time putting a floor in.

[Jared A]

All a floor will do is create less activity and more problems in this league. Fewer trades will occure because of the lack of flexibility we'll have. More problems with people being over/under the caps. It's not a benefit to the league, and the "real life" arguement doesn't work here. We have no incentive to keep our salaries low... the real owners do. Our players have no incentive to want us to spend close to the cap.

[charlie813brown]

I don't typically chime in on these much but the question of floor vs no floor: in our format the competitive balance I think is a little different than in the current version of the NFL. I feel like with (sometimes) the changing of GMs/Owners in our league changes certain teams directions from contender to rebuilder to retooler and so on.

If you enforce a floor similar to the CBA here I feel like the teams that feel like they need to desperately rebuild because someone before them did a crappy job and then left are hamstrung because then they'll be forced to spend money on a player that they might not value at that dollar amount. More teams in this league know their current place on the 'success cycle' (rebuild, contend, go for it) and I feel they aggressively pursue their path more so than any NFL team can.

A team, for example, that decides to stockpile picks for the future is hurt by not investing in the current team despite the fact that their current team might not be any good to begin with, how much better can a few free agents at X dollar amount make a team?

I'm not sure this makes as much sense as I wanted it to but just putting my thoughts out there. But I agree teams should have full 53 man rosters.

I think you'd have the same thing in the real NFL though. When a new GM and coach come in, they are left having to clean up the mess from the previous group and usually have to take the team in a new direction while working within the confines of the cap.

While I understand why some GM's are against adding the cap floor, I do like the idea of it serving as a potential deterrent to GM's completely tanking a season. We've all seen teams do that in this league and it hurts the competitive balance. IRL a GM would be fired if he intentionally tanked a season just to get a top pick.

The biggest problem we have with "tanking" is GMs don't totally control that. If you didn't sign a starting QB or your QB goes down and you don't own his back-up, your season is over. Unless you mortgage everything for a fringe starter. We can't solve this problem unless we just use a video game to run our games and not use real stats, and then this isn't that real at all. Enforcing a floor won't solve the tanking problem, but we should enforce the 53 players for realism rule.

[Ulrich82]

Also, I was listening to Mike Lombardi of NFL network today on the BS Report. Simmons asked him about what the teams that are way below the floor would do. Lombardi said the individual team floor doesn't come into play for the first two years of the new CBA.

This meshes with previous reports of the individual team floor being a 4 year average from 2013-2016 and 2017-2020. Apparently, the only floor over the first two years of the new CBA is the league wide required average.

As for tanking, the floor won't change anything. The best idea I have seen was posted earlier in the year by another GM who suggested requiring 9 wins per team over a 3 year span (or else you get fired). I know that is controversial, but it would do a lot more than the floor to stop tanking.

[Ryan R]

Also, I was listening to Mike Lombardi of NFL network today on the BS Report. Simmons asked him about what the teams that are way below the floor would do. Lombardi said the individual team floor doesn't come into play for the first two years of the new CBA.

This meshes with previous reports of the individual team floor being a 4 year average from 2013-2016 and 2017-2020. Apparently, the only floor over the first two years of the new CBA is the league wide required average.

As for tanking, the floor won't change anything. The best idea I have seen was posted earlier in the year by another GM who suggested requiring 9 wins per team over a 3 year span (or else you get fired). I know that is controversial, but it would do a lot more than the floor to stop tanking.

I think this is a good idea or maybe develop a more intricate formula than 9 wins per team over 3 years.. because some teams have gone 16-0 in this league while it's a rarity in the NFL.. maybe if teams were worse than the last standard deviation (I know stats talk)

http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/images/publica ... fig1.1.gif

or do it in three year increments. so say if we took all the win totals from 2008 - 2010 that would provide us a good sample..

i'm pretty much agreeing with the quoted idea but just coming up with a different way to do it.

[Strategist]

Guys are we really debating this. It would be really easy to get above a floor because you could sign one or 2 players to ridiculous contracts to get there. There is no need for a floor.

[Ben C.]

Guys are we really debating this. It would be really easy to get above a floor because you could sign one or 2 players to ridiculous contracts to get there. There is no need for a floor.

If it is that easy, then why not just have it for the sake of keeping the rules closer to the NFL?

[Ulrich82]

ESPN's John Clayton tweeted today as well that the team mandated salary floors don't being until 2013.