LTC figures

[Royce R]

Found an issue within this structure. For 2013 the non-exclusive franchise tag is $10,537,000. I have gone through the DFFL and found the top 10 paid WR's:
1) Larry Fitzgerald: $22,852,500
2) Sidney Rice: $18,166,667
3) Brandon Marshall: $16,500,000
4) Stevie Johnson: $12,925,000
5) Miles Austin: $12,750,000
6) Devin Hester: $11,857,523
7) Wes Welker: $11,750,000
8) Anquan Boldin: $10,290,000
9) Roddy White: $9,521,000
10) Brandon Lloyd: $8,500,000

This totals: $135,112,690-----> 135,112,690/10= $13,511,269

As the numbers for the 2013 season stand right now, New Orleans has Calvin Johnson. He is a 99 and the top rated WR. Taking those numbers if New Orleans chose to LTC Johnson he would have to pay $2,974,269 more per year than if he chose to just use the franchise tag. Shouldn't the LTC be friendly towards helping us keep a guy rather than hurting the chances of keeping a guy on his current team?

If you think its overpaying you either franchise him, or take your chances on the open market.

Its not a must to use the LTC or franchise tag, they are there to help us keep players if we want. Not to keep players cost down.

[Ulrich82]

I agree with Royce on the last point. I don't see any reason for the LTC to be less than the franchise for top rated players (especially when you are talking about the truly elite 99's). You have other options. If you were planning on using both the franchise tag and LTC option, you may prefer to LTC a lower rated player on your roster anywhere and use the tag on Calvin Johnson.

Otherwise, I love the idea of averaging the 10 highest salaries for position players below the player in question. It should clean up the rookie contract issues (in most cases) and is generally more in the spirit of the rule than restricting yourself to a narrow grade window. I think the +2% rule is fair as well for the case of up and coming players.

The one thing I do think we should keep is the 10% increase. Yes, this hurts guys who have restructured or backloaded deals. However, I think it is good incentive to stay in good cap shape and avoid contract restructuring. I feel this is like the NFL having escalating franchise tag values for players who get consecutive tags. I think it makes sense since you'd expect a player to do better on the open market, if he is going to sign a LTC with his current team, there should be some some definite benefit to the player, like guaranteeing a higher salary. I also think it adds an interesting wrinkle for cap management for GMs. Do you restructure a player to save some cap today knowing it will make it harder for you to resign him in the future? It may lead to cap strapped teams preferring to release an overpaid player rather than restructure which I think is better for the league in general.

[Goodell]

Found an issue within this structure. For 2013 the non-exclusive franchise tag is $10,537,000. I have gone through the DFFL and found the top 10 paid WR's:
1) Larry Fitzgerald: $22,852,500
2) Sidney Rice: $18,166,667
3) Brandon Marshall: $16,500,000
4) Stevie Johnson: $12,925,000
5) Miles Austin: $12,750,000
6) Devin Hester: $11,857,523
7) Wes Welker: $11,750,000
8) Anquan Boldin: $10,290,000
9) Roddy White: $9,521,000
10) Brandon Lloyd: $8,500,000

This totals: $135,112,690-----> 135,112,690/10= $13,511,269

As the numbers for the 2013 season stand right now, New Orleans has Calvin Johnson. He is a 99 and the top rated WR. Taking those numbers if New Orleans chose to LTC Johnson he would have to pay $2,974,269 more per year than if he chose to just use the franchise tag. Shouldn't the LTC be friendly towards helping us keep a guy rather than hurting the chances of keeping a guy on his current team?

If you think its overpaying you either franchise him, or take your chances on the open market.

Its not a must to use the LTC or franchise tag, they are there to help us keep players if we want. Not to keep players cost down.

Yeah, not necessarily aiming that LTCs must be great deals highly beneficial to the home team. Ideally to me, there would be a little premium on it for the player giving up his right to accept bids from other teams on the open market and just sign to stay home before free agency.

Depending upon where a player might fall personally amongst the top 10 highest at his position for similar players, the LTC might be a great deal (if he's already highly paid it could even be a discount) or may be higher than a team wants to spend (which they have other options as mentioned above).

Looking at some of those players, you might be including the SB/year also in the salary calculation. We don't do that currently when finding average salaries. We include roster bonuses if any as part of the annual salary, but not the prorated signing bonus. That would bring those numbers down a bit (such as Fitzgerald 16.6M instead of 22.8M).

I think these will generally work for most, but am a little concerned about the guys already making more than their LTC toward the top of the averaged top 10 similar player salaries for their position. Someone suggested a 10% raise, and complications raised with that as some have ballooned final year salaries as part of restructurings (maybe we can have the system recognize those and use the average annual salary for the deal as the benchmark there instead of the ballooned amount). But thinking we should keep thinking on trying keep the highest paid at their positions already away from taking a big discount extension from averages of lesser players below them.

[Goodell]

I agree with Royce on the last point. I don't see any reason for the LTC to be less than the franchise for top rated players (especially when you are talking about the truly elite 99's). You have other options. If you were planning on using both the franchise tag and LTC option, you may prefer to LTC a lower rated player on your roster anywhere and use the tag on Calvin Johnson.

Otherwise, I love the idea of averaging the 10 highest salaries for position players below the player in question. It should clean up the rookie contract issues (in most cases) and is generally more in the spirit of the rule than restricting yourself to a narrow grade window. I think the +2% rule is fair as well for the case of up and coming players.

The one thing I do think we should keep is the 10% increase. Yes, this hurts guys who have restructured or backloaded deals. However, I think it is good incentive to stay in good cap shape and avoid contract restructuring. I feel this is like the NFL having escalating franchise tag values for players who get consecutive tags. I think it makes sense since you'd expect a player to do better on the open market, if he is going to sign a LTC with his current team, there should be some some definite benefit to the player, like guaranteeing a higher salary. I also think it adds an interesting wrinkle for cap management for GMs. Do you restructure a player to save some cap today knowing it will make it harder for you to resign him in the future? It may lead to cap strapped teams preferring to release an overpaid player rather than restructure which I think is better for the league in general.

I agree with a lot said here also.

Some of the LTC questions seem to be clearing up for me and perhaps others finding agreement on some of the minor adjustments we can make.

If other LTC thoughts, let's get them out there also soon. Thinking we'll probably put up a poll on some of the small detail adjustments discussed on LTCs by this weekend and start to finalize changes there ahead.

[tino38]

Okay I think I have a better understanding of the LTC now. Was assuming that LTC was supposed to benefit the team cap wise however, thats what I get for assuming lol. Makes sense though, and I still do support the top 10 by position to better the fangm

[Ulrich82]

Sorry to double post this. I originally included it in the thread regarding the 2013 LTC rules poll regarding using real or sim numbers. I'm reposting it here in case this is where more discussion is occuring.

I do remember one problem from last year. I think a fix was developed, but I don't remember the details. I saw a specific case where two RB's with the same grade had significantly different LTC prices (I think it was Tolbert and someone else). The difference came from Tolbert being listed as a FB/RB while the other player was listed as RB/FB. As a result, the system averaged the top 10 FB contracts for Tolbert and the top 10 RB contracts for the other player. Its a big job to go through and clean up all the player positions (not to mention deciding if Tolbert is currently really a FB or a RB for example). I think the better answer is to form position groups. Specifically along the lines of: QB, FB/RB, WR, TE, or (WR/TE all lumped together), Offensive line (like the franchise tag is computed the same for C or T), front seven, and DBs. I am in favor of a front seven position group since for the sake of the sim, the player grades are treated equally. Also, anything else gets extremely complicated as we have DE/DT, DT/DE, DT/NT, NT/DT, DE/OLB, LB/DE, and other positions. Lumping DB's together removes the complication of players switching between CB and S (sounds like a rarity, but I've had two players do it in the past two years).

[Onyxgem]

Found an issue within this structure. For 2013 the non-exclusive franchise tag is $10,537,000. I have gone through the DFFL and found the top 10 paid WR's:
1) Larry Fitzgerald: $22,852,500
2) Sidney Rice: $18,166,667
3) Brandon Marshall: $16,500,000
4) Stevie Johnson: $12,925,000
5) Miles Austin: $12,750,000
6) Devin Hester: $11,857,523
7) Wes Welker: $11,750,000
8) Anquan Boldin: $10,290,000
9) Roddy White: $9,521,000
10) Brandon Lloyd: $8,500,000

This totals: $135,112,690-----> 135,112,690/10= $13,511,269

As the numbers for the 2013 season stand right now, New Orleans has Calvin Johnson. He is a 99 and the top rated WR. Taking those numbers if New Orleans chose to LTC Johnson he would have to pay $2,974,269 more per year than if he chose to just use the franchise tag. Shouldn't the LTC be friendly towards helping us keep a guy rather than hurting the chances of keeping a guy on his current team?

If you think its overpaying you either franchise him, or take your chances on the open market.

Its not a must to use the LTC or franchise tag, they are there to help us keep players if we want. Not to keep players cost down.

I thought LTC were supposed to help teams keep players are decent deals, not insane ones. I also think the 10% raise doesn't included if we using the top 10 salaries for players below them, that might just get contracts out of control.

[Ben C.]

A couple of thoughts:

1. Anybody know what the numbers look like if we either (a) use average salary during the life of the contract or (b) exclude deals that have been backloaded/restructured? This might bring the figures a little bit more in line with market value. I'm much more concerned about making sure the deals are fair, rather than placing a "premium" on a LTC. In the NFL you hear about players giving "hometown" deals all the time, under the assumption that the majority of players would prefer to not move their families as long as they receive something close to market value.

2. Goodell - is it possible to have the system generate a page that has a sortable table of all the contracts in a given league? This would be a great source for GMs looking to determine what a fair contract is for a specific player. As it stands, its pretty much a shot in the dark to decide whether a player is worth $X or $Y. In addition, having a tool like this would theoretically keep the market more realistic (higher graded players should be worth more than lower graded players, but that isn't always the case).

3. I'd like to see teams be able to use an unlimited number of restructures and LTCs, provided we are happy with the way each works.

[Onyxgem]

A couple of thoughts:

1. Anybody know what the numbers look like if we either (a) use average salary during the life of the contract or (b) exclude deals that have been backloaded/restructured? This might bring the figures a little bit more in line with market value. I'm much more concerned about making sure the deals are fair, rather than placing a "premium" on a LTC. In the NFL you hear about players giving "hometown" deals all the time, under the assumption that the majority of players would prefer to not move their families as long as they receive something close to market value.

2. Goodell - is it possible to have the system generate a page that has a sortable table of all the contracts in a given league? This would be a great source for GMs looking to determine what a fair contract is for a specific player. As it stands, its pretty much a shot in the dark to decide whether a player is worth $X or $Y. In addition, having a tool like this would theoretically keep the market more realistic (higher graded players should be worth more than lower graded players, but that isn't always the case).

3. I'd like to see teams be able to use an unlimited number of restructures and LTCs, provided we are happy with the way each works.

Very good idea and i agree taking the average per year of a restructured and back-loaded deals makes alot of sense.

[tino38]

Can't exclude back loaded deals but I'd say perhaps the backloaded year. In a 5 year deal, if yr 2 is restructured years 3 and 4 are still the normal contract. Year 2 would be shrunk and year 5 would be huge.