Salary cap floor...and cap ceiling?

[Dean-Atlanta]

Rich talked on our show, This Week in the PNFL, about the idea of bringing back the salary cap floor as a way of ensuring that all 18 PNFL franchises will field a competitive team. The idea is that a team well below that floor would have to make some trades for higher paid players to rise above the floor, and that doing this will n theory make that team more competitive. It will also keep a team from "tanking" as this was mentioned in connection to the idea that a team could tank to accumulate points, in discussion of ending the carryover of points. I was once one of those teams a little below hte salary cap floor when it was enforced, and thre very reason I was able to make some trades to get above it, is the fact that teams OVER the cap ceiling had to get under it, forcing them to trade some players. I think if the floor is brought back for this reason, the ceiling has to come back too. A floor without a ceiling will force the teams below the floor to massively over pay in trades for players to get above the floor because the teams above the cap would not be forced to trade higher paid players, allowing them to get The King's Ransom from the teams least able to afford to pay the price.

Below is a graph I made showing where all 18 teams stand in their salary numbers. Clearly one team would be below the cap, and 1-2 would be below the floor. A three way trade between Chicago, Detroit, and Atlanta (teams that have traded often) would bring all 18 teams closer to the median salary and likely between the floor and the cap.

[Dean-Atlanta]

Here is it is with the divisions winners from last season circled in red and the wildcards circled in blue.

[Dean-Atlanta]

Maybe Mitch can chase off his boredom by doing a full regression analysis of the relationships between higher salary teams and higher odds of making the playoffs, winning their divisions, and going to the Super Bowl, and publishing the results in a special edition of The PNFL News!

[Matt-Jacksonville]

After listening to the show, I would tend to agree with Rich. However, you present an interesting argument here as well.

I would propose that if we chose to go down this path, we would probably need to start at about 350 for a cap and 250 for a floor. The first season would give teams on the extremes a way to ease into this. Then we could step it down/up respectively till we got to about 325 for a ceiling and 275 for a floor perhaps. I can't tell the details of the graphic Dean shared, so I'm having to guess on numbers. Someone else may have a better idea for the numbers, but the concept should be similar.

If we combine this with changes to the point system, I think we could get where we want for FA and parity. By the looks of that graphic, I think we are pretty close to parity now. It is my feeling this has a lot to do with the existing parity in the league.

[James-Eagles]

Detroit will move up from the floor slowing if you look at Detroit. Their talent is there just being develop. Changing the rules would honestly needless cripple my team. That being said to claim I am not competitive would be bad. Detroit was 9th in PF-PA. Yes they are 5-11 but they played most teams tough. I believe only Chicago and New York can overlook playing Detroit. I think people need to worry less about other teams roster make up and more about there PPP. Rich was right it comes down to Tiers of coaching. It also comes down to a lot of bad GMs.

I will not support any type of Salary cap based on ratings. I supported when it literally made me break up my team. I am not going there again. My team is kinda like the NFL Rams except instead of trying to hold on to past glories I accepted my fate and went into fast rebuild mode. I was aggressively going after top tier talent using point and picks. I will be doing that again. If you look I only have 1 pick in next years draft. I have a few more pieces I need but my team especially on defense is mostly build.

[Matt-Jacksonville]

You do have a good point as well James. What about teams who build through the draft and have young teams. Also with the ratings trending down for those rookies with those changes the salaries could start trending down as well. Sounds like we have some good ideas for the league, but lack a good way to fairly implement them.

[James-Eagles]

I will be honest Detroit has little interest in resetting free Agent market or making huge blockbuster trades. They more in the market to keep their current talent and develop and add 1 or 2 young pieces each year. I think in 4-5 more season as teams losing their top guys to retirement and Detroit's players develop we will meet in the middle. I have 0 interest in doing a roster purge again.
That being said I would argue I was ahead of my time. Look at Minnesota, Arizona and the Rams in NFL. Those 3 teams are looking to move top talent to get picks to speed up rebuilds. Teams are starting to realize there is no advantage to being .500 teams every year for 10 years. You either want to be pushing for a championship or drafting high anything else is a wasteland .

[Dean-Atlanta]

Is the calculation of base player salary a mathematical formula based on the 8 skill ratings, actual and/or potential ratings? Do we know what that formula is?

[James-Eagles]

Is the calculation of base player salary a mathematical formula based on the 8 skill ratings, actual and/or potential ratings? Do we know what that formula is?

It is Actuals because it goes up after TC. Rich will not give out the formula. I don't think we need a floor if we reset points. I just I am voting no for a cap. It doesn't work and it just made it less fun for me because I built this team with no cap in mind. I am emailing Rich about it now.