2021 Off-Season Update

[JonC]

As much as it hurts me to say, I dont think the remaining signing bonuses are showing up when cutting players.

There was a problem with that. I didn't notice it because the player I test cut didn't have any signing bonus left. I believe that is fixed now, though. I will go through some of the cuts previously and update them if they had any signing bonus associated.

Confirming I see signing bonus at the bottom of the team page for a player I just cut. Math also checks out for mine (SB was really small, though).

[Goodell]

As much as it hurts me to say, I dont think the remaining signing bonuses are showing up when cutting players.

There was a problem with that. I didn't notice it because the player I test cut didn't have any signing bonus left. I believe that is fixed now, though. I will go through some of the cuts previously and update them if they had any signing bonus associated.

I have now gone through the cuts in each league and added the associated cap hit if applicable (guaranteed signing bonus left that wasn't recorded in the transaction initially due to error). If you see a cap hit charge for a player cut today and have questions about that or confusion, just send me a PM. Thanks!

[Goodell]

Contract restructures are now active. Those could be important in this year of a lowered salary cap.

Just click the RESTRUCTURE link on your team roster.

• Every team gets 2 contract restructures (plus another during the regular season when it is harder to create cap space).
• Players agree to cut their salary in half this season, but defer that amount to the end of their contract.
• Players get additional guaranteed signing bonus for doing this (1 or 2M depending upon grade).
• Be careful on that page, as clicking on a player's name selects them for restructuring. There currently aren't multiple pages to confirm decisions (may try to update sometime this off-season).
• With a new big balloon payment on their final year, restructuring may lead you to cut a player a year early for salary cap reasons so consider that when deciding.
• If you're unsure who to restructure, maybe it isn't a bad idea to hold onto at least one until you see how free agency is going and see if you need to restructure someone with bigger savings or ended up not needing additional room afterall.

Contract restructures and cuts may help many teams in salary cap troubles. We won't police the salary cap until free agency starts later this month, so teams have some time to get their initial finances in shape.

If you are looking for another way to create cap space beyond contract restructures, cutting or trading players can help — especially players with higher 2021 salaries and low or no signing bonus left (which creates a cap hit).

Just like the real NFL after a COVID year with the salary cap dropping, we should see more big contract players either cut, traded or their contracts restructured this season. NFL teams had to do it, you may have to also. You can also PM me if you're unsure of how to solve salary cap problems in this tighter budget year, looking for options or advise.

[NotSoGood88]

I go & click on LTC & restructure and it gives me a 404 not found. Is this something happening on my end? Same thing with RFAs, and I don’t know how to do tags (though that’s on me, wasn’t around last offseason)

[Goodell]

I go & click on LTC & restructure and it gives me a 404 not found. Is this something happening on my end? Same thing with RFAs, and I don’t know how to do tags (though that’s on me, wasn’t around last offseason)

I'll send you a PM to figure out what's up there.

[DerekM]

When do you think we will be able to trade players?

[Goodell]

When do you think we will be able to trade players?

I'm shooting for this weekend, but kind of depends if the old scripts have new errors on the new server or not and how efficiently those are fixed.

[bpboguta1483]

Up to this point never had the right players to work a reconstruction of contracts, but I have two in mind this season, does the signing bonus increase spread out depending on length of contract...2 mil/4 years?....Never mind I just read what occurs, answered my own question

[Goodell]

Up to this point never had the right players to work a reconstruction of contracts, but I have two in mind this season, does the signing bonus increase spread out depending on length of contract...2 mil/4 years?....Never mind I just read what occurs, answered my own question

For anyone else reading and wondering about that, yes the additional signing bonus works like a normal signing bonus. The extra bonus (1 or 2M) is just added to the existing signing bonus amount and all of the whole signing bonus is spread across the length of the entire deal. So they get extra signing bonus, but you don't account for it in a lump sum, it is divided up across the contract years. You'd half the salary for 2021, pay double their last year under contract, and have more signing bonus per year.

I don't know if it's a good tip or not, but I like to sign guys to 3-year deals sometimes where I pay regular price their first year, restructure their deal in the 2nd year to pay half the salary to get them on a discount for a season, and then probably cut them in their last season with the big balloon payment unless their career takes off to earn that higher money at that point. You would have a cap hit with signing bonus left, and it's a little higher because of the restructure, but by the last year you'd already accounted for most of the signing bonus. You wouldn't want to do that with someone you wanted to LTC, though, as that big balloon salary season would jack up the LTC price, so perhaps fits more with little older solid veterans.

[jerrydlux]

with trades coming available soon will COMP picks be added to our available picks soon as well?