2018 Free Agency Tweaks

[Jared A]

There's never going to be a perfect system. I think ours is just fine, and for the most part, has been good at creating competitive balance.


It will overpay the allstars, and it will underpay the fringe players. There's no doubt about that.


That being said... the way our sim is calculated, allstars are worth more. An A+ player can make you an incredible grade! They are game changing! Role players or reserves are not really important... unless injuries happen. This isn't like the real NFL where in any give game almost every player plays (even if on special teams). Somewhere around HALF of the players on our rosters do not have their grades ever count.


All that said... I think the system is ok. I will continue to complain, but that's part of being in a competitive league. I don't understand why someone thinks Cousins (in EFFL) is worth more than 1/4th of their team's entire cap. But... that's up to them.

[tino38]

1) I love the 5 bids rule. It drives me crazy, but it also creates a ripple effect on each of the next few days after initial bids. It doesn't bug me one bit if someone sneaks a steal in under my nose. I've gotten a few steals over the years and I've overpaid dearly for players. It's part of the game. Seems to me people are more upset that they missed out on stopping a steal and would like to have unlimited bids to guard the wall all day long, but that is not something I am in favor of.

2) Kirk Cousins getting over $40 Million in the EFFL is absurd and one of the joys of this game, you pay the price that you wish to pay!

3) I would be interested to see what Knights proposal would do to the overall free agency scores and contracts

4) I really hate the idea of tiered bidding

[Goodell]

*EDIT: After reading Commish's reasoning I'm fine with no changes to current model aside from focusing on building a more robust bid score tool.

One area I think we can improve upon is the algorithm that is used to score the bids. It's a great start but what I noticed is that it tends to value short term high SB to low base salaries. Free agents typically sign longer term contracts 4 or 5 years. The first year of base salary should be calculated as guaranteed in that regard. That way in the example below the 3 year contract is considered a better deal.

Yeah, the bid score analysis was a tricky thing to implement and something that we probably need to take another look at after we've had some time to examine what's working and what's not. It's more complex tweaking but something that can be improved.

I think we probably need to adjust the counter offer acceptances up a little bit, and take an overall look at what types of bids it favors over others and adjust as mentioned. There is some subjectivity to that, though, with some people arguing these types of deals should be more valuable than others while other people on the other side of it. Some saying shorter term high SB deals should have higher value because they'll count toward a team's cap so much more and what counts against the cap is huge in a cap management game where if someone is going to put more against their cap than someone else then they should have the favored bid. Others argue from a player's perspective what bids they'd prefer with some room for argument there.

I'd agree it's something to dig a little deeper into those calculations again.

[Fish]

Seems to me people are more upset that they missed out on stopping a steal and would like to have unlimited bids to guard the wall all day long, but that is not something I am in favor of.

Just so I'm clear...I'm not upset at missing out on the steals so much as I don't think FA should be its own exercise of game theory at the possible expense of the league as a whole so much as a simulated market that leads to realistic salaries across the board.

You can try to frame the discussion as sour grapes because I and others may have missed out on a player all you want, but that isn't my intent because I didn't plan to sign anyone. As the Steelers in year 2, team is pretty set and we still have the draft where I can address the few needs I have. These are simply my observations as a new player that is quite surprised how many good players that will likely start signed salaries around $450k on 4/18 (day 2) which means they likely only received 1 or 2 bids. Those steals impact LTCs, tags, etc because they are based on other player salaries (correct?) so it isn't so simple.

[Knighty Knight]

1)3) I would be interested to see what Knights proposal would do to the overall free agency scores and contracts

I think the bid score tool was a fantastic addition. We've had a few free agent classes to observe the impact. My first suggestion would be to calculate the base salary in year one as guaranteed money. There are more complex contracts in the NFL with guaranteed bases for multiple years but let's keep it simple. Make this one change then see how it plays out in reality.

Right now this might be the only rule change I would support. I think this tool is worth investing the resources in versus completely restructuring how we operate during free agency.

[Jared A]

I think a lot of people see a guy sign in our leagues for 760k, but in real life he signed for 3mil per.


Those are the kind of "savings" that create a TON of extra cap space. Especially when you amplify them by 30 teams. That extra cap space will go towards signing stars.


I've said this before, but we need to get AWAY from the idea that we are trying to imitate the NFL. Our league doesn't operate like that. We use the NFL as a general guide, and we have our own rules. High end players are more valuable to us than low end players (when compared to the NFL). As long as we are all playing by the same rules, I don't see anything wrong with it.


I also LOVE the bid score. Allows me to change bids in a drastic way. Awesome!

[tino38]

1)3) I would be interested to see what Knights proposal would do to the overall free agency scores and contracts

I think the bid score tool was a fantastic addition. We've had a few free agent classes to observe the impact. My first suggestion would be to calculate the base salary in year one as guaranteed money. There are more complex contracts in the NFL with guaranteed bases for multiple years but let's keep it simple. Make this one change then see how it plays out in reality.

Right now this might be the only rule change I would support. I think this tool is worth investing the resources in versus completely restructuring how we operate during free agency.

I agree

[Troy S]

I'll throw out a couple of ideas in here not as commish, but as a fellow GM.

Some really love and some really hate a tiered approach to when players are let loose on the market. I can see both sides of that. I'd personally probably lean toward realism in most cases where all players hit the market at the same time (some earlier if cut) versus some players have to wait until later. The league was always founded on the idea of giving people who love the NFL a simulated job in as realistic conditions as possible and allowing them to see what they could do as a GM in the same environment with the same options as a real GM.

There may be some aspects of tiered activity, though, that helps with realism of results and improves game play that just impacts some of our artificial rules.

Limits on bids are artificial for our sim world but intended to make things more realistic and improve "game" play where strategy is rewarded and makes playing more fun. We came up with 5 because a handful seemed to represent how many players a team might be talking to about signing on a realistic day. But in reality and the sim, not all days are equal. A lot more happens in the first few days than a month from now, yet we stick to the 5 bids/day all year.

One idea might be having more bids for just the first 48 hours out of the gate. Say 10 bids/day for the first 2 days. Then it goes to 5 bids per day the rest of peak free agency. Then down to 3 bids per day the rest of the year when free agency activity goes down. That keeps the amount of bids to free agent activity in a similar ratio for high gamesmanship all year with that amount of bids at different activity times adjusting.

Maybe a lot more bids for the first 2 days helps reduce the so-called steals that some might complain about and makes it a little more market-driven with more bid opportunities when more players flooding the market initially. Then adjusting bids down as the pool lowers to still require some strategy all year long that adjusts as free agency naturally changes through a couple different periods.

[Knighty Knight]

One idea might be having more bids for just the first 48 hours out of the gate. Say 10 bids/day for the first 2 days. Then it goes to 5 bids per day the rest of peak free agency. Then down to 3 bids per day the rest of the year when free agency activity goes down. That keeps the amount of bids to free agent activity in a similar ratio for high gamesmanship all year with that amount of bids at different activity times adjusting.

Maybe a lot more bids for the first 2 days helps reduce the so-called steals that some might complain about and makes it a little more market-driven with more bid opportunities when more players flooding the market initially. Then adjusting bids down as the pool lowers to still require some strategy all year long that adjusts as free agency naturally changes through a couple different periods.

Not sure who this Troy guy is but I really like the idea of an initial increase in bids for the first couple days of free agency flurry.

[tino38]

One idea might be having more bids for just the first 48 hours out of the gate. Say 10 bids/day for the first 2 days. Then it goes to 5 bids per day the rest of peak free agency. Then down to 3 bids per day the rest of the year when free agency activity goes down. That keeps the amount of bids to free agent activity in a similar ratio for high gamesmanship all year with that amount of bids at different activity times adjusting.

Maybe a lot more bids for the first 2 days helps reduce the so-called steals that some might complain about and makes it a little more market-driven with more bid opportunities when more players flooding the market initially. Then adjusting bids down as the pool lowers to still require some strategy all year long that adjusts as free agency naturally changes through a couple different periods.

Not sure who this Troy guy is but I really like the idea of an initial increase in bids for the first couple days of free agency flurry.

Lol - Troy is the GM of the AFFL Falcons, the brainchild behind FanGM, and also our wonderful Commisioner Goodell!