To move be more like the NFL salary system

[Bryan-Pittsburgh]

If we want to be more like the NFL, then we need to use the same schedule that the NFL uses.

Tagging our FA, then signing FA, then the draft, then training camp and then final roster moves to get to 53 / 63.

https://www.milehighreport.com/2019/2/9 ... ason-dates

We currently have to cut our rosters to 53 first just to get to the next off season. For me, I am looking at my roster and trying to determine who I think may retire, then looking at players that have no further development potential and lastly cutting players from the practice squad.

The practice squad players are usually resigned to being drafted players that aren't ready to play and need a little developmental time.

These players are not being developed because they are getting cut in order to make the roster limits. In other words, it is a waste of drafting them in the first place.

All of this is the product of the NFL changing since the days when FBPRO began and the limitations of FBPRO itself. Most everything is done using spread sheets which is a lot of work for Rich.

While it is somewhat interesting trying to perform GM functions, salary cap, etc, I agree with what Charlie said earlier. Let's just play the game. Keep all the play design rules and the player position attributes. Post Super Bowl, we take off a 2 weeks to a month which would provide time to work on PPP and plays and such. Then draft, training camp and back to playing.

[Steve-LA Chargers]

Let's just play the game?

It almost sounds like what is being proposed is to do away with the point system, free agency, and the salary cap and run team development purely through the draft and trades. This means any players in FA would be eligible to be acquired during the draft (like we do in the XFBS) and any post-draft free agent activity would be purely waiver wire order based. Teams would basically have the same players for a long time, so we'd probably need to limit rosters to 53 and eliminate anti-aging.

Radical changes to do - I prefer what we have, but am open to whatever the league wants.

[Rich-League Officer]

I am sorry I couldn't disagree more.
1.The current system teams salaries up up 30-40 million a year even if players are under contract. That is seriously way out of proportions.

2.The notion of keeping the cap low to accommodate teams that choose to keep there cap number low is also silly. You are penalizing teams for other teams actions. If teams wanted to add cap the players are out there. They are just looking for the league to force players into free agency. Or lower the cap to the point that the good teams are as bad as them. Currently 11 teams are above the cap number most of them over 20 million so while only 4 teams are 20 million under the cap.

I can tell team are not looking to add cap money I have had 1 team approach me about a trade and that team isn't one of the teams that need to add cap space.

I assumed the cap would be used to bring parity to the league with fine adjustment not a sledge hammer taken to teams who actually tried to build teams. .

As for the concerns to what I suggest I would like to address them

1. Don't want more complicated. Actually what I suggest is less by a lot. If you don't extend the contract you know the players salary for the length of it instead of waiting until after the season has started to find out.

2. More work for Rich. If we did something like this I would be more than willing to put some time into a spreadsheet that would do most it for him. I am not one for finding more work for Rich.

3. It would be more NFL like not exactly but more. QB's contract doesn't jump until he signs a new contract. I have multiple players contracts jumping up 2 million in the middle of a contract

4. The biggest reason our salary are going out of control is because everyone salary goes up every year. NFL can have lower cap increases because each year only a few get a big jump not everyone. Teams can even sign contracts so that would allow players to take more in year 3 and less in year for because they need to resign the QB in year 4.

Yes any system that would take all of that into factor is just more than any of us want to do.

****** This is the only thing I suggest*****
Salary for the length of the contract at the players salary number at the time of signing.

****************

Like I said I wouldn't do suggest it if it was more work for Rich and I would be more than willing to work with Rich to make a spreadsheet that made it easy. Just something need to be done about the current state of Salaries in the league.


Yes there are no holdout but they are truly rare unless you are in Pittsburgh.
Yes NFL contracts go up in value usually from year to year but so does their cap number.

Let me address James because he makes some interesting points...

#1 The increase of 20-40m is not all teams, those were just the best teams. And that was the idea initially. But many teams see small increases. Plus, even for good teams its not a 20-40m (20%) bump because you all have cuts to make. No team gets to keep all 53+10 players. You all have to cut expensive players/vets because in most cases points become limited. So the new cap number for all teams is a bloated number.

#2 The whole idea was to average out the talent like the NFL does. But I confess, I am disappointed to see so many teams not even try to add talent. Instead willing to be 50-100m under the cap. I originally had a cap floor for this issue but it was Dean who accurately pointed out at the time that there was not enough talent in the pool for teams to add to get up to the floor. Has that changed? maybe a little but perhaps not enough.

James thoughts:
I completely understand the annoyance that every players salary can increase each season but I can counter this by telling you that we have an artificially HIGH cap to adjust for this. Yes, we can sign players for 4yrs at his current salary level (its really his previous years ability, not todays) and it can lock that number in. And lets be honest, this would favor Detroit because he has 150 points and all these contracts signed already. So lets not pretend this is not a little tiny bit selfish
But I can overcome this entire way of thinking by saying the cap is now 170m.
So my thought is, what difference does it make?
Plus, how unrealistic would it be for you to sign a QB for 10yrs (because you know hes a max pot player) and you get him for 3M (based on last years actuals) so he signs a 10y/30m deal....that is not NFL-like at all. So quite frankly that does not work either.

If you want players salaries to be locked in, that's fair but then I might counter and say, no deals over 4 years. Sorry but a star DE is not going to be happy with a 6yr deal at 1.8M just because you have the points to lock up a max pot DE who was drafted 3rd overall and he's already played his rookie salary. See where I am going with this? This system may be flawed but here is one thing its doing, its paying players more fairly for their current ability than locking in these players long term.

My feeling on this system was to accomplish 2 things....pay the players what their talent dictated they should be paid and put pressure on the top teams to need to cut players so the lesser team could add them. I think its working.

I think teams are freaking out over increases when its not really justified. Every player on your team was being paid at the previous seasons actual talent ability! These increases are just the normal increase in his talent. If your player got a 2M raise its because his talent calls for it. You were getting a discount last year!

But, if everyone wants salaries locked in when you sign them, thats fair but expect much lower caps. You are not getting 208m cap as you all lock in your talent for 8 years. And btw, contract lengths are going to be much shorter because NFL players are not signing 6-7-8-9-10 year deals. Show me that data that teams ever do this.

You guys are funny, a few seasons ago you want a cap, now people are crying its working and now I may lose players.
I have to be honest, if people are hating on this so early into it, I am not inclined to make major changes. I'd rather just scrap the whole cap and point system and just let you keep all your players. Why are we even wasting time with this? I cant keep everyone happy no matter what I do. Maybe keeping it simple and focus on the coaching is the best way. It's clear none of you want to surrender any players so lets turn this into a trading league again. You want to improve, email the other team and get it done. The free agent pile will be crap but who cares. But if we do that, maybe all this anti aging needs to be reined in too?

It's a good conversation but lets face it, there is no system that makes everyone happy.

[Dan-Cincinnati]

I’m personally enjoying the new system. It’s realistic even if it irritates people. Trading is not common in the NFL. Losing good players due to cap restrictions is common.

[Matt-Jacksonville]

Some people prefer building through the draft(IE the NFL Patriots and some other teams), some people prefer to build through FA (Jon Gruden), some like to wheel and deal. Dan is right, while many loved the trading days of the old system, it is not entirely realistic to the NFL. So, we have to decide, do we want to be more realistic or try to appeal to the majority of the league?

[Charlie-49ers]

There are actually a lot of issues incorporated in these discussions, many of which are associated with the changes in the NFL over the past twenty-years, and many of which we have tried to shoehorn into a game that has been frozen in time, almost since its inception. Sierra really screwed up by dropping the game, but that is for another post.

Agree, the cut-down to 53-players is required to start the new game, and yes, we would like to keep a few of these players, but you can get them back by bidding on them in Free Agency. Alternatively, we can cut them to start the new season, identify the ones that you would like to keep, and we can give them back as if you signed them in FA. Yes, more work for Rich, so we would have to keep it reasonable, and have some guidelines (e.g. two players per team, years 3, or 4, or 5 and under).

Salary Cap is a different issue that we have attempted to address over the years and it is the best we can do, under the limitations of the game. A no Cap, no Points, etc. system is not realistic, as you need to manage the finances of your team against other teams, just like you do with your PPPs. If everything is free, it will be abused, either intentionally, or unintentionally.

As I have said for many, many seasons, it isn’t great, but the alternatives suck.

[James-Eagles]

I am sorry I couldn't disagree more.

James thoughts:
I completely understand the annoyance that every players salary can increase each season but I can counter this by telling you that we have an artificially HIGH cap to adjust for this. Yes, we can sign players for 4yrs at his current salary level (its really his previous years ability, not todays) and it can lock that number in. And lets be honest, this would favor Detroit because he has 150 points and all these contracts signed already. So lets not pretend this is not a little tiny bit selfish


You guys are funny, a few seasons ago you want a cap, now people are crying its working and now I may lose players.
I have to be honest, if people are hating on this so early into it, I am not inclined to make major changes. I'd rather just scrap the whole cap and point system and just let you keep all your players. Why are we even wasting time with this? I cant keep everyone happy no matter what I do. Maybe keeping it simple and focus on the coaching is the best way. It's clear none of you want to surrender any players so lets turn this into a trading league again. You want to improve, email the other team and get it done. The free agent pile will be crap but who cares. But if we do that, maybe all this anti aging needs to be reined in too?

It's a good conversation but lets face it, there is no system that makes everyone happy.
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The selfish point is completely wrong. I have supported removing points. I have even backed a system like we currently had even though it hurt me. Contract and point wise before we introduced this new system I would have been set. But to be more realistic I supported changing it even though it hurt me. I support what I believe was right regardless if it helps me or not. That is why I made the suggestion I made because I believed it is right. You can't call me out on supporting things out of selfishness when I routinely support things that hurt myself. That is cherry picking examples. Besides I plan on slowly blowing up the team anyways because it wasn't build for this current system.

I don't mind removing a few players but honestly you are focusing too much on teams that are purposely keeping their cap low and forcing the good teams down to their levels instead of making a small change. There has only been 1 year in the NFL where the cap actually was lower than a previous year and that was the year after the uncapped season. I don't mind teams keeping their caps lows that is their choice. I just think it is wrong to punish other teams because they choose to do this.


I am sorry for the late replies. Honestly my life is very busy right now so I don't get on here daily. It is more like weekly.

[Jerry-Redskins]

Based on the system Rich designed, the cap will not have to go up once settled in unless he changes the salaries themselves. The Salaries are based on the talent level and not revenues like the NFL. This means once the new rules such as anti aging have had a few years to level out, the league wide talent level will be close to static season to season. In my opinion, the cap is about right now, but will need to increase for a season or two to account for the increase in total talent I believe will occur due to the anti aging allowing older players to be a little more desirable and thus higher salaries. I would guess we end up at @$220M once things stabilize.

[Steve-LA Chargers]

I'm kind of realizing the detractors may have a point about the inevitable hindrances and backfires of the existing system.

Coaches don't trade with me at all, and when they do, it's always a win-lose for me (i.e. they rip me off and win and I simply lose by getting garbage I don't really want in return). I'm kind of done with trading with coaches in this league, so I realize now I must figure out how to solve my team's salary cap challenges on my own.

As such, the only way I can offload talent to get under the cap is by choosing which amazing player(s) to cut. Years of building a great team will basically be thrown down the toilet because I know now I won't get anything for any of my starter quality veterans at all - they just get cut. This is going to transform the way I draft, the type of FAs I go after and how I build a roster going forward.

Right now, my main decision is to either (1) do a full purge of all my unsigned veterans to create long term salary cap flexibility with a skeleton crew roster or (2) sign all of them and ultimately be forced to cut a few of the most pricey ones after the draft just so I can keep most of my team intact for one more season (i.e. delay the inevitability of option 1 for one season).

I'm leaning toward option 2 and going into a full rebuild after this season.

[Rich-League Officer]

Jerry, I would not hold my breath waiting for the cap to rise much in future years. The truth is, as I see teams manage the cap year after year better and better, its going to go down!
15 teams are under the cap, maybe 6-7 well below the cap with no place to go to spend the money. Therefore, enough talent has not shaken free from the better teams to end up on the weaker teams.

Steve, this entire cap system was designed to enhance free agency. The big downside is it kills trading. The NFL does not have great trading despite a little uptick the last few years. The coaches in this league are smart, why trade for someone else's star player when you are over the cap? and if they do, why give a 1st rder? Those days are over! If teams prefer trading over free agency than get rid of the cap system. If you wanted to explode trading, get rid of the points too. This was the tradeoff that was inevitable under this NFL realism. I am not sure its better for the league though. I kinda think owner participation and fun would be to abandon all of the points, cap and that stuff. Just play the game, wheel and deal for the best team.