LTC figures

[Goodell]

If a LTC system allowed an elite player still at the height of his career to accept a huge paycut to stay longer (as would be the case if a guy was already at the top of the top 10 of his salaries at his position), I think that's probably not within the bounds of setting up fair offers if the truly best get huge discounts to stay with those jackpot lucky teams while the guys near the bottom of the top 10 now or below would have to get pay increases.

Doesn't makes sense to me that the far better of those two players can sign LTC for huge discount off what he's already making while a lesser player can sign LTC also but only if a nice pay increase. That would just feed the rich getting richer, helping perhaps the most elite teams with the most elite players who get to take big discounts while teams with perhaps lesser talent have to give their guys pay increases to keep.

I know teams want to save as much money as they can keep as many of their own players as they can, but from a league perspective overall there has to also be interest in maintaining market driven prices and fostering competition giving more teams chances to compete for players. We also don't have player free will, so the market is really the only way we have to determine value on a player's behalf and ensure players are getting what they're worth. We already have tilted the home team advantages so much to home teams to keep their own with UNLIMITED bidding to re-sign anybody they want so long as cap space to do so, giving them Franchise/Transition tags, and recently limited LTC options.

[Ben C.]

If we have the LTC option using the top 10 market determined salaries for a given position, drawing from a pool of all players at the position rated lower than the player being signed, then how is that not market driven?

Players don't make decisions based on annual salary. On strictly the money side, they look at signing bonus (guaranteed money), roster bonus (forces a team to make a decision earlier in the off-season), and contract length. If I were an elite player making $15mil/year (or their agent) choosing between the following two contracts, I would choose the first option.

1. 5 year deal, $30 mil SB, $10mil salary = $80 mil over life of contract ($16 mil/year average)

2. 3 year deal, $15mil SB, $17mil salary = $66 mil over life of contract ($22 mil/year average)

Why? Because I would get twice as much up front, in my pocket. If I get hurt, I still have $30 mil.

To make these "fair to the player" we just have to make sure there's a reasonable signing bonus attached to it. This would also help encourage teams to let the player hit the market instead of doing a LTC because they could avoid the signing bonus issue.

[sportznut]

If we have the LTC option using the top 10 market determined salaries for a given position, drawing from a pool of all players at the position rated lower than the player being signed, then how is that not market driven?

Players don't make decisions based on annual salary. On strictly the money side, they look at signing bonus (guaranteed money), roster bonus (forces a team to make a decision earlier in the off-season), and contract length. If I were an elite player making $15mil/year (or their agent) choosing between the following two contracts, I would choose the first option.

1. 5 year deal, $30 mil SB, $10mil salary = $80 mil over life of contract ($16 mil/year average)

2. 3 year deal, $15mil SB, $17mil salary = $66 mil over life of contract ($22 mil/year average)

Why? Because I would get twice as much up front, in my pocket. If I get hurt, I still have $30 mil.

To make these "fair to the player" we just have to make sure there's a reasonable signing bonus attached to it. This would also help encourage teams to let the player hit the market instead of doing a LTC because they could avoid the signing bonus issue.

I haven't read this entire thread, but I agree with Ben here. Use the average to get your LTC number, and then make the SB a substantial percentage of the overall contract. This gives the player a competitive contract in tune with the market value, and yet makes GMs think twice about just LTCing anyone.

[Goodell]

Past salaries being compared now may be market driven from previous years, but if taken to the point where unlimited or expanded LTCs and very few strong players ever hitting the market ever again for bids, that wouldn't be the case going forward for long if most the contracts being compared down the road wouldn't be market generated any more but just a lot of LTCs signed with the annual salaries of the best players brought down through that process.

That wouldn't be the market driven salary teams were willing to pay for the very best players in the league or fair to the most elite of players, it would be an average of what lesser players than him make and a huge jackpot win for that lucky lotto ticket holder who can keep the best players, not ever allow anyone to ever place a competitive bid against him if expanded LTC options, and do so at a reduced average of lesser guys salary.

Installing unlimited LTCs now kind of just sets up the best of the teams who already have the best players to put a fence around them, while those best players are stuck on those jackpot teams only able to be paid to averages of lesser guys.

It is a good point about signing bonuses, though, but I've tried hard to maintain the importance of annual salary within any league-generated contracts since we have so many trades (unlike reality) where the only thing that matters anymore to a players value within the league after a trade is his annual salary and how much he's counting against his new team's cap then. It wouldn't be in the best interest of the league I don't think if elite players spend the next half-decade going to different teams being a small fraction of his real value against the cap once the SB no longer matters to his acquiring team. If the league's setting up a contract option, I think it's ideal that the salary be very representative of the player value no matter what other transactions follow.

To me, the annual salary of these league-generated options should be "fair" (and by fair I don't mean a huge salary reduction for the best players who'd have huge interest on the market otherwise) and the signing bonuses are that "premium" teams have to pay if they want to keep their player out of the open market that would LOVE to pay that player more if they could. You can choose a very small premium for a shorter deal, or a higher premium to extend this guy long-term. Either way, the basis of his deal being a fairly priced salary representative of their worth.

The sim player wants that money others would pay on the market, and probably deserves it if teams out there willing to pay in a capitalistic system. Teams don't have to sign LTCs if they think they are too much as they have to many other options if they think this top player isn't worth that kind of money his sim agent is asking for with higher LTC. My guess would be that most of the best players that a team said that LTC is too much would get even higher offers within a competitive bidding situation.

I have Adrian Peterson, Troy Polamalu, and Peyton Manning on my team, all headed for free agency. I probably should be arguing for unlimited LTCs to keep them all and for lower prices on LTCs to keep them cheaply. That's not in the league's best interest, though. If an elite superstar was already highly paid and the LTC average was lower, he shouldn't have to be forced to accept a long-term pay cut to stay when so many others would pay more. The LTC needs to represent that "more". A team can say that price is too much, but then the market will say whether it was or not as his current team can extend matching rights through tags or other avenues to have his value shown to be lower on the market and pay less from the market.

If a team says to their best players we'll keep you but only at a discounted salary that's the average of a bunch of guys worse than you, most top players don't say "okay sounds great". They ask their agent if the market interest would give them better money elsewhere. Sometimes it won't, and they just have to accept a discounted deal, but we aren't giving our best players that chance to see if the market would give them better options if we allow cheap LTC options to pay them less and even more avenues to ensure best players never get market tested.

Free agency is one of the best parts about our league that creates some of the best opportunities for competitive balance. We were setup to give hometeams big advantages to keep players they wanted, but also making sure that it was fair to player value being tested on the market first. Don't think it would be quite so good for the league overall if the best players were able to never have competitive bids from any other teams and the best teams were able to keep all their best players at discounted salaries averaged from lesser players, while the teams with lesser talents trying to rise had to give their LTC guys pay raises instead to keep. From an overall league setup, that wouldn't make sense to me.

[tino38]

I agree, we have to mimic the NFL price wise but Goodell makes a very good point. We can't use SB to be the main brunt of the contract due to the trade happy league we are in. Using the actual salary to be the big portion is essential to keeping our league comparable to the NFL. That perhaps may even reduce the trading that takes place within leagues. Forces smart decisions on each GM. Should not be allowed to LTC a guy, and then eat a large SB to trade somewhere else because then that defeats the purpose of us creating parity among contracts. In year 5 of an LTC and after all SB has been eaten a guy could be a very elite player still playing for minimal cash compared to his value.

[sportznut]

Guys who sign an LTC would get 50% SB or less of the overall contract, and should also get a 1 year NTC as well IMO.

[Ben C.]

I guarantee that if you force the SB to be a large portion of the LTC, there would be a natural limit to the number of LTCs each team uses. Experienced GMs know to stay away from a large SB if they think there is a chance the player could be traded in the future, and inexperienced GMs learn that pretty quickly.

[sportznut]

I guarantee that if you force the SB to be a large portion of the LTC, there would be a natural limit to the number of LTCs each team uses. Experienced GMs know to stay away from a large SB if they think there is a chance the player could be traded in the future, and inexperienced GMs learn that pretty quickly.

Correct.

[Goodell]

Guys who sign an LTC would get 50% SB or less of the overall contract, and should also get a 1 year NTC as well IMO.

No trade clauses are part of the LTC already I believe at least with some of the choices and we can certainly look further into how NTC applied and the various options presented.

If teams want to use the high signing bonus and low salary in the open market, I'm good with that. That's open bidding and everyone can place structures on their bidded contracts that they want.

But these are league-generated contracts in my view that should be in the best interests of the league by definition. Giving Adrian Peterson a contract option that includes a massive salary pay cut with below-market permanent cap value but massive signing bonus isn't good for the league in my opinion (if the league is going to setup how his contract extension should look) due to all the trades. Having a tiny salary Adrian Peterson in the league for the next 5 years after he's likely traded with all our activity isn't the ideal setup for the league overall I don't think if the league has a say in how this contract looks. Making roster moves is what makes this league fun, limiting the long-term ability to move a player with crippling signing bonuses instead of salaries probably isn't best for the overall league experience. Crushing teams with massive cap hits if they do trade big SB guys (as happens every off-season) also probably not best for the league overall. These things will happen anyway with open market deals, but the league doesn't have to encourage more of those potential problems when it would instead setup better deals for the league health.

I know there are a lot of guys pushing for signing bonuses to matter more in these things and are okay with smaller salaries, but I just can't see where small under-valued salaries for elite players is good in the big picture compared to setting up a contract structure that ensures his worth is well represented ahead throughout the league for the remainder of his deal no matter what other transactions follow in a transaction crazy environment.

[tino38]

Guys who sign an LTC would get 50% SB or less of the overall contract, and should also get a 1 year NTC as well IMO.

No trade clauses are part of the LTC already I believe at least with some of the choices and we can certainly look further into how NTC applied and the various options presented.

If teams want to use the high signing bonus and low salary in the open market, I'm good with that. That's open bidding and everyone can place structures on their bidded contracts that they want.

But these are league-generated contracts in my view that should be in the best interests of the league by definition. Giving Adrian Peterson a contract option that includes a massive salary pay cut with below-market permanent cap value but massive signing bonus isn't good for the league in my opinion (if the league is going to setup how his contract extension should look) due to all the trades. Having a tiny salary Adrian Peterson in the league for the next 5 years after he's likely traded with all our activity isn't the ideal setup for the league overall I don't think if the league has a say in how this contract looks. Making roster moves is what makes this league fun, limiting the long-term ability to move a player with crippling signing bonuses instead of salaries probably isn't best for the overall league experience. Crushing teams with massive cap hits if they do trade big SB guys (as happens every off-season) also probably not best for the league overall. These things will happen anyway with open market deals, but the league doesn't have to encourage more of those potential problems when it would instead setup better deals for the league health.

I know there are a lot of guys pushing for signing bonuses to matter more in these things and are okay with smaller salaries, but I just can't see where small under-valued salaries for elite players is good in the big picture compared to setting up a contract structure that ensures his worth is well represented ahead throughout the league for the remainder of his deal no matter what other transactions follow in a transaction crazy environment.

Signing bonus is the big money winner in the real NFL. But the league is trade happy and some SB or very minimal. Our league due to the trade happy GMs that we are should reflect it more on the salary than the Signing Bonus. That way in the event of the trade the GM who inherits the traded player now pays the brunt of the contract. Guys all the time last year would 5 yr LTC a player and then trade him to another team for multiple picks. I did it myself in the CFFL with Brandon Flowers. This becomes impossible to trade an elite player with the LTC due to the huge SB the trading team would have to eat. To keep feeding the trade happy trend and to keep the experience that Goodell has talked about similar, the salary is the part that should be the most of the contract.