2012 Season Update

[Goodell]

Is there any possibility of having a 'no offer' option for guys who fall into the RFA category?

In CFFL, I have Andrew Hawkins as a RFA. He's potentially a nice player, but he's not worth the $1.26m a year that has been automatically assigned to him. My only options, as far as I can see, are either to keep him at $1.26m a year or cut him and then bid on him. I'll probably end up doing the latter, but it means that I'm actually worse off than if he had been an UFA.

It's something to look at for future rules discussions. I'd have to do more digging into how the NFL handles those types of things. In the past I think we kind of came to the conclusion that if a guy wasn't worth the low tender 1.26M then perhaps not worth protecting anyway so didn't do a whole lot otherwise for thsoe situations. But would add it to things to research and talk about rules changes there in the future.

[Zapotek]

Cool, thanks.

[Goodell]

So based upon previous discussions, we're aiming for the start of free agency to be:

Sunday, April 22nd 1pm ET

Like when we're use to football kicking off every weekend. I'll reach out to those who haven't tagged/LTC or been to the site very recently. Thanks

[Goodell]

Teams should be able to do contract restructurings now. Teams get 2 per year, just like last year. There is a link near the top of your team roster for restructurings. Clicking on that will give you more details.

Remember, contract restructuring moves half of this year's salary to the last year of the player's contract. It also adds a signing bonus to the player for doing that (either 1M or 2M for B+ or higher rated players). As this doubles the last year under contract's salary, it may force you to cut this player a year early or pay him double his normal salary that final season, so if it's a guy you want to keep around a long while might think twice before restructuring his contract.

You get 2 per year, but don't have to do them all now. You can do these restructurings throughout the year. Don't do one just because you have one, as you might acquire a player later this off-season or during the year that would be a good player to restructure. Once you use up your 2, there is no more restructuring for you til next year's off-season. Let me know if any questions.

[whteshark]

Did we come to a figure on how much extra cap room are we allowed to borrow against next year?

[Strategist]

I have noticed that not everyone from my team that should be available to restructure is. I notice Philip Rivers and Dwayne Bowe right off the bat. I guess it won't really matter unless I am looking to restructure was just letting you know.

[Jared A]

I would agree that the 120% rule isn't the problem. The problem is that there's so few A+'s. You get a complete average for almost all A's and A+'s but for B's, you get the average of the highest salaries.

[Goodell]

I have noticed that not everyone from my team that should be available to restructure is. I notice Philip Rivers and Dwayne Bowe right off the bat. I guess it won't really matter unless I am looking to restructure was just letting you know.

I'm not sure of those players exactly, but in general...

- You cannot restructure a contract just signed. So if someone was LTC'd or signed an exclusive tag long-term deal, teams can't sign them to a deal one day and restructure it the next. Same with upcoming free agency. Players signed cannot be restructured that same season.

- Players must have multiple seasons left under contract. If just one year left, can't move salary to their last year under contract.

- Players can't have already had their existing contract restructured. A player can only have his contract restructured once.

[Strategist]

Ok well rivers was signed last season and has not been restructued and still has 4 years left.

[Goodell]

I think things are slowing a little in free agency to say we can finish up at least the bidding for tag part of it this week.

Deadline to submit a bid on a tagged or RFA player: Friday May 4th 11:59PM ET.

After that, any RFA without a bid will sign their 1-year tender and return to their team as active players at the existing RFA price. Any franchise tagged player without any bids by that time will be eligible for contract extension similar to our LTC and exclusive tag options in structure.