2012 RULES: Long-Term Contract Details

[Goodell]

Three LTC questions with 3 votes allowed. Support new LTC? What do you think about the prices generated? And what kind of limit for players?

There has been strong support for a long-term contract option and the ability to sign your own player to a longer deal before he enters free agency. Here's how it would work as proposed with an emphasis on limited introduction and a bit of a premium for the new right to keep a player off the market that didn't exist before other than exclusive franchise tags for the truly elite.

Teams get 1 LTC per league year. They can use it either in the off-season prior to free agency starting (during the same time designated to franchise tag a player) or if they choose not to use it then can carry that over into the season and LTC a player in his last year under contract.

The LTC figure will be based upon the top 10 grades for a player at the same general position within the same general grade range. We take the players current Madden grade from the end of last season and query all players in our league at his position with a grade between 2 points lower and 2 points higher to arrive at an average salary for a top 10 player at his position at his performance level. This is the current tool to calculate that (subject to further modification as needed): http://www.fangm.com/football/ltc-check.php

Teams have the option for eligible players of signing an LTC at the following lengths:
5-year deal, averaged salary, SB = 200% averaged salary
4-year deal, averaged salary, SB = 150% averaged salary
3-year deal, averaged salary, SB = 100% averaged salary
2-year deal, averaged salary, SB = 50% averaged salary

We will monitor how the introduction of this worked and adjust in the future as deemed necessary.

Another point that hasn't been discussed as much but I wanted to build in some limits for the amount of times a player could be LTC'd and kept off the market to avoid situations where a team does a 2-year LTC with a player over and over and over (unless most are okay with that). It might be difficult to track some of the limits that could make sense automatically in the system (not impossible but more work to ensure a player's LTC eligibility was reset after certain kinds of transactions), so I propose something like a total limit on LTCs for a player in his career to be easier recorded and monitored as part of the player's permanent data going forward.

That becomes a big deal possibly in cases where a team maybe wants to get trade value for a pending free agent, signs them to a short LTC with less SB, then immediately trades the player for value. If we limit LTC to only once in a career, that player can only be LTC'd that one time and not by his new team. I kind of like that total LTC limit to one per career (as well as one per team per year) to prevent that from being rampant, but teams looking to trade for such players recently LTC'd might disagree.

We could put further limits on LTC trades (such as if LTC cannot trade that player for a year or for the current off-season), but in reality a team like the Jets can sign a backup QB one week and then trade him the next when they get Tebow instead. So limits there might be more artificial for us more than based in reality (which we like to do when we can). Plus ran out of poll options, so feel free to offer additional thoughts on LTCs as well in this thread.

We'll resolve this important new question soon and start implementing for the new year.

[Royce R]

Just to talk about your point of continually doing a 2 year LTC on a player over and over Troy.

Its a 120% raise every time. Thats not going to be easy to swallow as a GM. Look back at the panthers franchising peppers over and over again until they couldn't afford him.

So to think a player getting LTC many times in his career isn't often going to happen. he is going to have to get cut to ever cheapen up the price, and if he gets cut it means he wasn't worth that LTC anyway.

[Adam K]

Obviously there might be questions moving forward. I think the prices could be a tad high, but not way too high.

Regardless, thanks for putting this together. Very cool element added to the league.

[Jared A]

I will say that I don't like this set up. All it does is allow teams to extend superstars. If the player isn't a top 10 at his position, it's either WAY overpay him or let him hit free agency.


We have franchise tags, that we ALREADY allow teams to extend from. Are we going to get rid of that aspect, and just allow to use the Franchise tags?


This will help teams who have lots of stars on them, and hurt teams that don't.

[soonertf]

I believe it's one LTC and one Franchise tag Jared. However, if I understand right, there won't be transition tags. So this isn't much different than what we had before. I'm neither strongly for or against LTC, but I think if we are going to have them then this is the best suggestion thus far.

Kind of glad you didn't take that trade offer now though!

[Jared A]

sooner... I get it's one LTC and one Franchise tag, but I was really asking if we were still going to allow Franchise tags to be extended.


I am glad I didn't take it too... wouldn't have enough money to extend them.

[Onyxgem]

sooner... I get it's one LTC and one Franchise tag, but I was really asking if we were still going to allow Franchise tags to be extended.


I am glad I didn't take it too... wouldn't have enough money to extend them.

Sounds like we are keepijg franchise tags to..but it still less than the two trans and franchise tag.

[Ben C.]

sooner... I get it's one LTC and one Franchise tag, but I was really asking if we were still going to allow Franchise tags to be extended.


I am glad I didn't take it too... wouldn't have enough money to extend them.

LTC extensions would be cheaper than the franchise tag in most cases. The franchise tag remains as a tool to potentially tag/trade a player as is done at times in reality. Also, in some cases a team may choose to put the franchise tag on a player with the hope that another team signs them to a contract extension at 75% of the franchise salary, which -might- be lower than the LTC option was. But that team takes the risk of losing the player (a risk lessened by the potential compensation).

Besides, the costs are high enough that over time a team will not be able to do very many of these without playing hardball with the salary cap.

[soonertf]

Not sure on the extending of franchise tags. My vote would be to say 'No' unless someone bids and you match, but I'm open either way.

[Goodell]

LTCs shouldn't be just for super stars. It's not just top 10 salary at his position. It's top 10 for his position AT HIS GRADE level.

So if you have a 70-rated DE that you think the world of going forward and want to lock-up into a LTC, the salary of the LTC would be the average of top 10 salaries amongst 68-72 graded players at DE. So it shouldn't be just super stars. The player will end up getting raise (at least 120% or that average whichever is higher) but his salary would be based upon players making the same within his grade level.

Per the other poll about LTC / Tags, we'd be setup more like the NFL now.

- A team can use one tag per off-season. It can be either a Franchise or Transition tag. Just one tag, not both types. We used to do 1 franchise + 2 transition per team. Now with LTC it would be like NFL (and highly supported in our vote on that) with 1 LTC per year and 1 Franchise or 1 Transition tag per team each off-season.

- A team can use one LTC per season (either off-season before free agency for pending free agents or during the season for guys in their last year).