2018 Off-Season Update

[Goodell]

Let's get the new year started. While we're working to get everyone back, we've opened up some team-only management options to enter decisions before free agency.

Teams can now apply franchise or transition tags on pending free agents and set tender levels for restricted free agents. Decisions on 5th year options for 2015 first round draft picks (for players selected in sim drafts only) are also available. You must enter these decisions prior to free agency starting later this month.

Teams should also now be able to cut players, restructure contracts, and sign a player to LTC before free agency.

Keep in mind only elite players should be tagged, as they'll be set to make NFL franchise/transition tag elite salaries (top 5 or top 10 at their position). If you don't want to lose a pending free agent but they aren't quite good enough for an elite franchise tag salary, remember you get unlimited bidding toward keeping your own free agents.

If you want to KEEP a franchise-tag quality elite player, the best option is to select one of the exclusive franchise tag options. That'll automatically tag and then sign the player to a long-term deal that you've chosen. Make that choice carefully, as some of those options include a 1-year no-trade clause. All of those choices include a signing bonus based upon the tag amount. Once tagged to exclusive franchise tag with contract terms, that player is no longer on the market and on your team at his new chosen contract value. You probably also want to check the LTC options for the player prior to using tag on them.

UFAs cannot be traded. Pending UFAs can only be traded if they are first franchise tagged, then the player signed to 1-year tender contract, and then traded as a tagged plaeyer to another team.

If you want to TRADE a franchise tag quality player, you want to select non-exclusive tag (with matching rights and getting 2 first rounders if you don't match offers). That'll allow you to later click to sign the player to a 1-year tender and then trade them as a signed active player on that 1-year franchise tag salary. You could also trade a player you do exclusive franchise tag at 5- or 4-year long-term deals, but would have to eat the signing bonus as dead money.

Transition tag isn't used much in NFL any more, but you have that option here. There is no compensation if you lose a transition tagged player (unlike non-exclusive franchise tag) but you do get matching rights to match any offer they get in free agency. Offers must be near that transition tag value, so don't transition tag a player if you don't think worthy of a top 10 NFL salary at their position.

For restricted free agents (RFAs) that have 3 years or less, you can set a compensation tender amount based on the NFL values. If you put a 1st round tender on a RFA, you can either match any offers that player gets on the market or get a 1st rounder if you don't match. If you choose the original round tender, that's based upon the actual NFL draft round for that player (so if player drafted in reality in the 7th round, their original round tender would net you a 7th rounder if you don't match offers). Select to make a restricted free agent to unrestricted, and they'll become UFA on your roster so you'll have unlimited bidding on them in free agency like any other UFA on your squad.

Players on your practice squad last year aren't eligible to be RFA, only young players on the active roster. Practice squad players from last year have been turned into UFA so you'll have unlimited bidding rights to try to sign those players in free agency.

You can also now enter decisions for first rounders with 5th year options in 2019. It is NOT recommended to pick up a 5th year option EXCEPT for truly elite players as these drastically increase the salary and cost of tag/LTC options ahead. If no decision entered before free agency starts the option will not be picked up. For simplification of league operations, option choices are based upon transition tag value (for top 10 picks) and 2/3 transition tag value (for 11-32 picks) this year applied to next season's salary if option picked up. If not picked up, player will be a UFA for your team when his contract expires after this year with the usual options (tagging, LTC) at that time for UFAs.

LTCs, restructures, and cuts are now available. Do not cut players listed as UFA for your team. Those are free agents. Even if you don't want them or care about your unlimited bidding rights for them, you don't want to cut them as if another team signs one of your UFAs it helps you in compensatory pick considerations for next year's draft. So don't cut UFAs.

Before I turn trades on, I want to set the draft orders so teams know exactly what pick they're dealing with before swapping selections and being confused about what pick they dealt. That'll involve also doing compensatory picks from last off-season's free agency + making some adjustments for comp picks being tradable and tagged players not, so will take a little bit. Depending upon how much time I get for that, trades will come online next week.

If you are new or have questions about this, please send me a PM before you make your decision. We don't like re-dos here, as it's a lot of manual work and we setup these systems to avoid manual work. If there's a lot of manual work, I can't keep the leagues going, so go slow, make good decisions, and ask me before you do anything if you aren't sure or even just want advise.

Expect more and more roster options to be available as we get ready for the new season.

[Goodell]

With free agency set to start Saturday, April 28, at 10 AM ET, we'll fill any remaining openings this week prior to that time.

We prefer to give openings to new GMs so that we can grow the league and find great new participants, but this might be one of the rare times we give GMs with only one team another.

Several included notes of interest in another team in your checkin or separate PM or message post. However, as we'd officially consider that, I'd need requests to be in this format...

If you're interested in another team, send me a PM to Goodell account and include:
Subject: Openings
Your top 3 teams of interest from the Openings listing (in the top menu).
Why you'd be a good choice for a new team (previous sim team performance, activity, etc.)

We'd first still be looking to new GMs first, but if spots still open mid-week we'd look to fill those spots otherwise. Thanks.

[Knighty Knight]

Arizona (DFFL) is currently on vacay in Hawaii. I let him know that he needs to check in.

[Goodell]

Arizona (DFFL) is currently on vacay in Hawaii. I let him know that he needs to check in.

That sounds like more fun! No need to pry people away from the beach. He wouldn't be on a list of at risk or open teams. The only GMs that could be replaced are ones who haven't logged in at all in 2018 or told me otherwise that they wouldn't be back.

[Goodell]

Got all the compensatory pick calculations done for all leagues. That's always a bit of a pain. So I'll finish up the draft orders with that information and should be able to turn on trading tonight. Important that draft order set before trading so teams know for sure what pick they are dealing and not guessing.

Here are the compensatory picks for each league (see below). If you want to know more about that, go here and click your league: http://www.fangm.com/football/comppicks.php

Only eligible teams (lost more UFAs than gained) can get comp pick. Street UFAs (not associated with any team being cut) do not count toward this. Only UFAs with a team and unlimited bidding associated. 4 comp picks are the max.

How we calculate it is match up all the UFA gains vs. losses for eligible teams. For example, if you lost a 6.0 grade player but signed a similar 6.0 grade player (or 5.9-6.1) those balance out so your loss isn't compensated. We take the most unbalanced losses and sort them by loss value, then divy them up until we get to the top 32 comp picks. We used this scale for loss to round: 3RD (7+), 4TH (6.9-6.5), 5TH (6.4-6.1), 6TH (6.0-5.6), 7TH (5.5-) with some exceptions for round balancing.

Code: Select all

AFFL:
3RD 	4TH	5TH	6TH	7TH
JAC	HOU	CLE	PIT	NO
...	IND	OAK	HOU	ARI
...	PIT	MIA	NO	NYG
...	HOU	SEA	IND	MIA
...	CIN	CIN	NO	NO
...	...	PIT	...	SEA
...	...	ARI	...	JAC
...	...	PIT	...	MIA
...	...	HOU	...	SEA
...	...	NYJ	...	ARI
...	...	...	...	NYG

CFFL:
3RD 	4TH	5TH	6TH	7TH
HOU	ARI	ATL	DEN	ARI
ATL	CIN	ARI	SEA	BUF
HOU	GB	CIN	ATL	PHI
...	PHI	DEN	BUF	ARI
...	TB	CIN	SD	BUF
...	...	DEN	...	SD
...	...	CIN	...	TB
...	...	PHI	...	ATL
...	...	DEN	...	BUF
...	...	PHI	...	...
...	...	...	...	...

DFFL:
3RD 	4TH	5TH	6TH	7TH
WAS	WAS	MIA	TEN	BAL
GB	CAR	BAL	SEA	TB
SEA	HOU	CAR	GB	BAL
...	CAR	HOU	...	TEN
...	KC	TEN	...	BAL
...	WAS	HOU	...	TB
...	...	TEN	...	GB
...	...	WAS	...	SEA
...	...	CAR	...	KC
...	...	HOU	...	NO
...	...	...	...	...

EFFL:
3RD 	4TH	5TH	6TH	7TH
GB	DAL	GB	MIA	BAL
...	PHI	DAL	ATL	NYJ
...	DAL	DAL	HOU	PIT
...	GB	PIT	MIA	NO
...	...	PIT	TEN	NYJ
...	...	...	MIA	TEN
...	...	...	HOU	BAL
...	...	...	MIA	NYJ
...	...	...	PIT	ATL
...	...	...	ATL	HOU
...	...	...	...	NO
...	...	...	...	TEN
...	...	...	...	...

FFFL:
3RD 	4TH	5TH	6TH	7TH
CIN	GB	STL	TB	SF
...	MIN	GB	MIN	CAR
...	BUF	MIN	NO	CIN
...	GB	STL	TB	ARI
...	...	GB	CAR	SF
...	...	STL	TB	BUF
...	...	...	ARI	CAR
...	...	...	MIN	BUF
...	...	...	ARI	...
...	...	...	SF	...
...	...	...	ARI	...
...	...	...	CAR	...
...	...	...	SF	...

Send me a PM if you have any questions.

[JonC]

Struggling to remember where to find how to set up my FA Bid Queue. Any quick help there?

[Goodell]

Struggling to remember where to find how to set up my FA Bid Queue. Any quick help there?

No bid queue. Just a draft queue. For free agency bidding you click on the player when free agency is turned on and then enter a bid at that time.

[JonC]

Struggling to remember where to find how to set up my FA Bid Queue. Any quick help there?

No bid queue. Just a draft queue. For free agency bidding you click on the player when free agency is turned on and then enter a bid at that time.

Ah okay, cool. Was looking at the FA Bid/Draft Queue on the GM Directory and thought I could set something up for FA.

Thanks!

[Goodell]

Draft order for all picks across all rounds is now posted.
http://www.fangm.com/football/draft-picks.php

Let me know if you notice any problems. Thanks!

[Goodell]

Turning on trades is always a little tricky, but I believe we're ready to turn on trades now. Let me know if you notice any problems. Thanks and happy trading.