2017 RULES: Tag and Trade

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Should the league change their tag and trade rules for pending free agents?

No - keep it the same, trading franchise tag player rights.
12
21%
Yes - tagged player must be signed to 1-year tender then could be traded like NFL.
46
79%
 
Total votes: 58

Goodell
Posts: 3780
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2017 RULES: Tag and Trade

Post by Goodell »

Tagged players being traded happens rarely in the NFL (Matt Cassel and Jared Allen are examples from reality) but happens frequently here. Some of those situations seem to happen in the grayest of areas with teams coordinating together for optimal salary outcomes or trying to play along the edges a bit to get value for players set to leave their rosters otherwise. Things at times have seemed to get messy when tagged players get traded and matching rights switched from team to team. It's a situation that I always feel like needs to be cleaned up each off-season.

In the NFL you can't trade a player just because you placed a franchise tag on them; the player has to sign his tender to be under contract with the team in order to be traded. Tag applied, player signs 1-year tender at franchise value, player become active roster player again, then can be traded in the NFL. Our sim world is different from reality because we don't have real players deciding to sign their tenders or not. We sort of assume they sign their tender but still keep them with franchise tag treatment on the market with matching rights traded.

The league proposes that (if feasible) we make a sim tagged player sign his 1-year franchise tag tender BEFORE being traded. Since we don't have real players, we'd make the sim team click to sign the 1-year tender for the player, then they'd be an active player under that 1-year salary deal, and then that team would be free to trade that player like any other active roster player.

Teams planning on tagging and trading players, as often happened in the past, can still do that. They just wouldn't be trading a franchise tag matching rights any more, but instead a player on that 1-year signed deal. The acquiring team could use one of their LTCs to sign the acquired player either the same off-season or the following off-season before the player became a free agent again. So the acquiring team would have two off-seasons and 4 LTCs available (plus the option to use franchise tag again) to use to sign that acquired tagged player before they hit the free agency market.

Another advantage is that it better represents NFL reality where tagged players can't be traded until they sign their tenders. It also arguably cuts out some of the franchise tag unrealistic gamesmanship in free agency, limiting what can be done to move a tagged player to just signing them to a 1-year deal. On the other side, it is more limiting for the acquiring team given that they couldn't match free agent multi-year offers or extend the deal if no bids, but as mentioned before acquiring teams would have 4 LTC and next off-season tagging options to extend the player themselves otherwise.

If this is a popular proposal, and if the programming isn't too complicated (I think it should be doable) we may institute this off-season before free agency as it doesn't really change options teams have on the whole involving any of their players or pending free agents, even if it's slightly different than the past (anyone eligible to be tagged & traded in the past would still be after rule change, but would just have to be on 1-year deal instead of trading rights). If it's a more controversial change highly opposed, it may be pushed back to future off-seasons.
Official Statement from the Commissioner's Office
soonertf
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Re: 2017 RULES: Tag and Trade

Post by soonertf »

I've never liked the concept of trading a free agent's rights. This makes much more sense.
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Goodell
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Re: 2017 RULES: Tag and Trade

Post by Goodell »

CONCLUSION: Keep this in mind for franchise tag decisions. Starting this off-season, how a franchise tagged player can be traded will change. You can no longer tag a player, trade a player, and have him be a franchise tagged player for new team. Instead, you'll have to tag a player (Non-Exclusive matchable), then later click to sign them to their 1-year tender if you want to trade them (once trading opens), they'll then become an active player (no longer on free agent market) under that 1-year franchise salary, and could be traded as other players under contract. The acquiring team could LTC them this off-season (if haven't used both their LTCs otherwise), or LTC next off-season or re-tag before next year's free agency.
Official Statement from the Commissioner's Office
Goodell
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Re: 2017 RULES: Tag and Trade

Post by Goodell »

Goodell wrote:CONCLUSION: Keep this in mind for franchise tag decisions. Starting this off-season, how a franchise tagged player can be traded will change. You can no longer tag a player, trade a player, and have him be a franchise tagged player for new team. Instead, you'll have to tag a player (Non-Exclusive matchable), then later click to sign them to their 1-year tender if you want to trade them (once trading opens), they'll then become an active player (no longer on free agent market) under that 1-year franchise salary, and could be traded as other players under contract. The acquiring team could LTC them this off-season (if haven't used both their LTCs otherwise), or LTC next off-season or re-tag before next year's free agency.
Reminder of this rule that was passed and instituted last off-season regarding tag and trade, where by a vote of 45-9 we made our rules more like the NFL regarding franchise tagged players being traded in that they had to sign a 1-year tender prior to being under contract and tradable again. You can tag and trade a player but must first sign them to that 1-year tender. I had to remind myself about this recently.
Official Statement from the Commissioner's Office
Goodell
Posts: 3780
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2008 3:44 am

Re: 2017 RULES: Tag and Trade

Post by Goodell »

Goodell wrote:
Goodell wrote:CONCLUSION: Keep this in mind for franchise tag decisions. Starting this off-season, how a franchise tagged player can be traded will change. You can no longer tag a player, trade a player, and have him be a franchise tagged player for new team. Instead, you'll have to tag a player (Non-Exclusive matchable), then later click to sign them to their 1-year tender if you want to trade them (once trading opens), they'll then become an active player (no longer on free agent market) under that 1-year franchise salary, and could be traded as other players under contract. The acquiring team could LTC them this off-season (if haven't used both their LTCs otherwise), or LTC next off-season or re-tag before next year's free agency.
Reminder of this rule that was passed and instituted last off-season regarding tag and trade, where by a vote of 45-9 we made our rules more like the NFL regarding franchise tagged players being traded in that they had to sign a 1-year tender prior to being under contract and tradable again. You can tag and trade a player but must first sign them to that 1-year tender. I had to remind myself about this recently.
A tagged player can have their 1-year tender signed on their free agency bidding page.

I've also recently added that option on the team roster page when first choosing tag options. If you'd prefer to sign that prior to free agency, please send me a PM and I'll reset that choice to tag and sign 1-year tender immediately. Otherwise, visit your franchise player's page in free agency when active and click to sign tender as done last year.
Official Statement from the Commissioner's Office
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