2012 RULES: Long-Term Contract Details

[Jared A]

I misunderstood that Troy, thanks.


I get the franchise tag end of it, and matching rights. Our Franchise tags are not the same as the NFL's though. If a franchise player doesn't get a bid, we can still extend him. We can do that with exclusive franchise tags also.


My question is this... do we still have the option if no bid is made on our player to extend him? Does that count as our LTC?

[soonertf]

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.

Hopefully the cap will increase in 2013. With revenues skyrocketing for the NFL, I don't see how it couldn't. Due to some outstanding (or perhaps lucky) drafting I go about 3-4 young superstars that I hope to keep! They've already brought two SuperBowls to the Big D, it'd be a shame to not see about 2-3 more.

[Goodell]

Yeah, franchise tags should remain the same as before but to be consistent I think we'd want to use similar contract structures for franchise tag extensions (exclusive or non-exclusives without bids) as we've done on LTC choices.

- Exclusive franchise tags mean the player does not even field offers, he goes right into signing with his new team with various options. We had that option being more expensive than non-exclusive tags. The figure was based upon the NFL's published franchise tag price per position.

- Non-Exclusive franchise tags are on the market and other teams can bid on them. Home team has matching rights as well as getting 2 first rounders if they decide not to match. If a non-exclusive tagged player gets no bids, we gave his team extension options in the past.

If new LTC format supported, we'll then address incorporating that approved new contract format for LTCs and how we'd price those. But makes sense to me that we'd do something similar with contract choices across the board.

[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.

Hopefully the cap will increase in 2013. With revenues skyrocketing for the NFL, I don't see how it couldn't. Due to some outstanding (or perhaps lucky) drafting I go about 3-4 young superstars that I hope to keep! They've already brought two SuperBowls to the Big D, it'd be a shame to not see about 2-3 more.

Sooner, you won't be seeing 2-3 more trophies coming your way if I have anything to say about it.

[Ulrich82]

I think the point about non top-10 players at their position being way too expensive to LTC has been cleared up, but, I have one point to make about that. The main point of this, in my mind, is to pay a premium to keep a player off the FA market. I think a mid-range player should be somewhat expensive to give a long term contract too because you probably have a decent shot at bringing him back on the FA market. I'm not saying it should be an exorbitant price like the franchise tag, but there should be some gamble involved.

I'll try to make my point with one of my own players. Kraig Urbik is a 75 rated G. I have him under contract for 2012 at $565k. Let's say I convinced Urbik will be a star in 2 years. I could either take my chances with him on the FA market after next year, where I suspect I could get him signed for less than $1 million a year, or I could offer him a LTC at $1,228,500 salary. In that case, I think it is much better to let the player hit the market.

Urbik isn't necessarily a great example (but I don't want to go into too many details about my FA plans), and I think these contracts will generally be offered to 80+ rated players, but I think that kind of decision is healthy for the league. If you give a lower rated player a LTC, you should be invested in that player improving or think you are willing to pay a premium to keep him. I think you could potentially have some interesting decisions to make about whether or not to let a player hit the market when you talk about RBs rated in the low 80's, for example.

[Ulrich82]

Something seems wrong with the contract calculation tool. I just looked up Mike Tolbert and Benjarvis Green-Ellis. Both are rated 80. Tolbert is a (RB|FB) and Green-Ellis is a (FB|RB).

As a result, Tolbert's LTC salary is decided by RB's between 78 and 82: $2.1 million
While Green-Ellis's LTC salary is decided by FB's between 78 and 82: $805,000

Cleaning up position listings is probably a pain (but having Jacob Tamme included as a TE/FB and thus counting towards Green-Ellis's contract but not Tolbert's is wrong), but we probably should lump RB and FB together (even though true FBs have a different role). For similar reasons, we may want to lump offensive line positions together as well like franchise tags go. Maybe punter and kicker too. Not sure about CB/DB/S or NT/DT/DE/OLB?

[Ben C.]

Something seems wrong with the contract calculation tool. I just looked up Mike Tolbert and Benjarvis Green-Ellis. Both are rated 80. Tolbert is a (RB|FB) and Green-Ellis is a (FB|RB).

As a result, Tolbert's LTC salary is decided by RB's between 78 and 82: $2.1 million
While Green-Ellis's LTC salary is decided by FB's between 78 and 82: $805,000

Cleaning up position listings is probably a pain (but having Jacob Tamme included as a TE/FB and thus counting towards Green-Ellis's contract but not Tolbert's is wrong), but we probably should lump RB and FB together (even though true FBs have a different role). For similar reasons, we may want to lump offensive line positions together as well like franchise tags go. Maybe punter and kicker too. Not sure about CB/DB/S or NT/DT/DE/OLB?

I agree that the FB/RB distinction should be removed, but I don't think the same should be done for the other positions. There is a distinction between the other roles because you must have a given number of tackles, guards, and a center. The same is true for the front seven and secondary positions.

[Ulrich82]

I am wondering if the SB rates are high enough. I'm thinking out loud here, but while the 50/100/150/200 levels seem nice and orderly mathematically, they really aren't when you look at the yearly result. From what I am seeing, the 5 yr option is a value over the other levels assuming you think the player will play out most of his contract. I'll try to break down the number nicely:

yr/ bonus/ b per yr / increase over contract with 1 less yr
2/ 50%/ 25% / ----
3/ 100%/ 33.333% / 1.333
4/ 150%/ 37.5 % / 1.125
5/ 200%/ 40% / 1.0667

Look at the numbers for a player with a base salary of 4 million:
yr / SB (mil) / SB per yr
2 / 2 / 1
3 / 4 / 1.333
4 / 6 / 1.5
5 / 8 / 1.6

As a result, the cap hit per year of the contract for the various levels is:
2 yr = $5 mil
3 yr = $5.333 mil
4 yr = $5.5 mil
5 yr = $5.6 mil

If I sign the player to a 5 year deal and cut him after 2 or 3 years, I have a big cap hit to deal with, but otherwise, wouldn't I gladly pay an extra half million per year to sign him to the 5 year deal?

I think the real key is the amount the signing bonus per year number increases. If we set this as a constant at 1.25 or 1.5 we get a very different picture (as opposed to the ---/1.3333/1.125/1.0667 numbers that result from the 50/100/150/200 levels).

A 1.25 increase would lead to roughly the following levels (assuming the 2 yr deal keeps the 50% SB level)
YR/ SB/ SB on a $4mil contract/ Cap charge per year
2/ 50.00%/ $2 / $ 5
3/ 93.75%/ $3.75 / $ 5.25
4/ 156.25%/ $6.25 / $ 5.56
5/ 244.14%/ $9.75 / $ 5.95

For a 1.5 multiplier, the numbers look like:
YR/ SB/ SB on a $4mil contract/ Cap charge per year
2/ 50.00%/ $ 2.0 / $ 5
3/ 112.50%/ $ 4.5 / $ 5.5
4/ 225.00%/ $ 9.0 / $ 6.25
5/ 421.88%/ $16.875 / $ 7.375

These numbers actually seem to represent different contract levels. Maybe something in between a 1.25 and 1.5 multiplier per year on the SB would be better. I kind of like the 1.5 numbers myself because the 5 year deal is significantly more expensive as a cap/yr calculation). I have an excel spreadsheet set up where I can vary the numbers easily if people want to see different levels.

[Ulrich82]

I agree that the FB/RB distinction should be removed, but I don't think the same should be done for the other positions. There is a distinction between the other roles because you must have a given number of tackles, guards, and a center. The same is true for the front seven and secondary positions.

I agree about the distinction in roles, but what happens for guys who are NT/DT versus DT/NT? What about G/T? The current tool would compare him to other Guards despite the fact that he could be playing tackle for you. The franchise tag lumps offensive positions together. I agree that CB and S are different, and I think there should be a different contract number for CB and S, but how do you handle LTC numbers for DB/S vs FS/S vs CB/S vs DB/CB vs CB/DB (all of which we have). Even if we completely clean up the player ratings across the board, guys who play multiple positions are a headache.

[Nathan S.]

Not sure if this has been said but for the "Can LTC a player unlimited number of times" choice then the 2nd LTC a player would receive should be larger then the first contract he received, regardless.