2010 RULES: Alternate Compensation

[Jared A]

Ok... so, I have a first round tendered player, and the rams contact me and say... "hey, would you take the first pick in the second round"... I say yes, and then I have to tell everyone that I'd take a 2nd round pick, right? Then the Patriots say, well, I want him if it's just a 2nd round pick. But, their 2nd is the 60th pick.


The rams aren't willing to give up the 1st overall pick. So, now the Rams are in a bidding war with a team that isn't going to have to give up nearly what they are if signed. In a way, this rule would make it more difficult for bad teams to sign RFA's. I know they already have that problem, but there's the ability to negotiate.

[Goodell]

All of that is the basics of RFA in general, though, and none of that would be changing. You can't tender high first rounder or a low first rounder. Only a first rounder in general. And here as in reality that makes it harder for teams with high picks in that tendered round. If you don't want to risk a team with a low first rounder signing the player you'd have to use a higher tender but can't designate a high or low pick within that round in the NFL or here. It would stay the same as always with RFA rules generally -- but just an announcement to make sure all teams had all the information on compensation and no secret price fixing. We aren't trying to change the NFL's RFA rules or make something different than exists in the NFL. We are trying to replicate that environment in general for better or worse but that's the aim generally.

If a bad team with a high pick did want to bid on a player but didn't want to give up their high pick in that round, there is an easy solution... and I think I did this myself when I signed a franchise player. Before bidding, TRADE DOWN. Get some value in swapping a higher pick for a lower pick and getting a little extra, and then put in a bid with your lower pick in that same round.

If someone with a low pick is the highest bidder, there is nothing saying you have to take that lower pick. You can match the deal, make that player an active part of your team again and then the power shifts back to the team in terms of controlling an active player since they are no longer free agents. But while free agents the goal within the league is to have a fair market to set their fair price and equal and open competition for the player. The most a team can do in the reality or here is just protect themselves with the tender compensation level by designating a draft round.

There's still the abilty to negotiate, but I think in previous off-seasons some teams maybe wanted to control their players as if they aren't free agents at all. I will decide which team I'll let you sign with by working the system to the team I want to trade with. I'll pick the compensation and team specifically. We'll work it so the other team gets a great deal and maybe willing to give me more if they can get a steal of a deal also. The league in general can't have free agency that way. It's in the best interest of the league for a fair market and open information. Not secret deals and people circumventing the intention of free agency and players not getting fair market prices.


But teams can negotiate something different also. This just tries to not make those be so much secret negotiations for fixing an unfair price and limiting bid competition intentionally, and let every team know the compensation has been reduced fairly.

Back to the Cassell example a bit because it involves another way of trading guys on the market. He was a franchise tagged player, so a little different than the RFA discussion. But let's say he was franchise tagged here also. His team could trade his "rights" at any time (so long as he's not been signed yet) to any other team for any other price they wanted. The franchise provisions would just go right along with him to the new team and they'd still have the same compensation protections. It doesn't happen as much with RFAs, but a team could also trade the rights to a RFA at any time to any other team for any price they want. The player remains on the market to field fair offers, but the rights to that and compensation requirements would just shift to the new team.

[Jared A]

Real teams can negotiate with players that they have RFA'd for longer deals. We should be able to do that in some way. (if that's the case) We can do that with franchised players... which makes it possible to trade them.


Also, collusion can still happen. "you bid the minimum on my guy, and I'll bid the minimum on your guy" both match, and don't worry about compensation.

[Goodell]

Real teams can negotiate with players that they have RFA'd for longer deals. We should be able to do that in some way. (if that's the case) We can do that with franchised players... which makes it possible to trade them.

Also, collusion can still happen. "you bid the minimum on my guy, and I'll bid the minimum on your guy" both match, and don't worry about compensation.

Without real players, that's always challenging in sim leagues. Most baseball leagues I've been in have LTC options but have a group of leaders run some figures or take an average of their EC thoughts on values and then present the teams with some generated figure.

I've been hestitant for me to make up salaries, thinking the market is much better at establishing a value. But giving home teams extraordinary advantages in keeping a player with unlimited bids for their own as well as enhanced tagging rights here that aims to serve as a LTC mechanism for teams to retain top players.

I don't know that we'll ever be able to stop all possibilities of people trying to work the system to their advantage and sometimes outside of the rule intentions, but we can try to observe those instances and bring up rules changes the next year to try to improve the systems to limit that.

In the case you mention, if the market is fair and open just because you put in a minimum bid on a player you likely won't be the highest bidder for a good player. There will theoretically be other teams willing to bid much more because the player is worth more than the low-ball bid. We're just trying to prevent people from fixing the market so that their low-ball bid isn't challenged because everyone else thinks a 1st-and-third is needed but we're tricking everybody and making it much lower for just one team. If everybody knows the compensation required and it's reasonable, then a low-ball bid shouldn't win a bidding war. But it could if one one team knows the reasonable compensation and everybody else thinks the compensation level is something different than it really is.

[whteshark]

Hey Commish,

Have you ever thought of setting a minimum wage maybe based on grade when it comes to RFA's? As it stands right now I might be willing to give up a first and third for a player with a lot of upside but I could get him for far cheaper than I could if he was transitioned or franchised.

For instance Ryan Harris is a free agent. A first and a third would most likely be tendered to him. And if I'm willing to pay that price I can sweep in and throw 7 million down on a SB but make his salary the absolute minimum. On the open market Harris would command a much higher base salary.

Perhaps, based on grade we should set a minimum wage even for RFA's?

I know I have been one of those GM's guilty of pushing the envelope when it comes to trying to sign players to dubious contracts and that some rules were changed because of that. I think in hindsight I was wrong as the new rules made it much more realistic.

I'm all for a free market but there are times and instances for the sake of realism that some rules should instituted. It would also make a GM think twice about compensation when they might have to pay a heftier price for their salary.

My two cents.

[Goodell]

It's something to think about but I tend to trust demand over the grade. Say a player has a strong grade but really jacked up his ankle in the last game of the season last year and most teams in reality are staying away from him, but he'd have a high minimum bid requirement based upon an outdated grade that didn't account for that.

Players can go from highly graded to unwanted pretty fast these days like some high priced RBs who were fairly highly rated RBs not long ago but in low demand this off-season. To me, their demand should matter more than what their madden score was last year.

To me, the market should bring the highest contracts to the players in the most demand. The only thing that should hinder much competition for a player would be if compensation levels set too high. And that's what this is trying to hit at. If a team realizes that nobody is bidding on their RFA because the compensation was set too high (as always happens here) like reality they can settle for less compensation. But now we'd just let everybody know in order to increase the bids and have the market demand set the price as intended. This will hopefully limit cases where there is only one bid for a RFA because everybody thinks the compensation is too high but one team knows that it's not really the compensation required, which should lead to more teams seeing a reduced compensation level as more reasonable and more teams willing to entertain a bid at the reduced compensation.

[Royce R]

We've had a pretty good discussion here. I think all my worries are pretty well taken care of now.

I switched my vote for the change because that is what the majority wants and I can't find a really good reason not to change it if we make sure and cover all the loopholes.

[tkienast]

After reading through the discussion I also changed my vote to be in favor of announcing when you will take less. Good discussion, it talked me into changing my mind.

Side note: Do we have a list somewhere of guys that will be FA's? or is that pending due to the 3/6 RFA situation?

I thought I remembered seeing where someone posted a list but it could just be my mind turning to jello.

[Goodell]

Definiltely want to get a lot of discussion going on any topic with mixed opinions.

You can find the 2010 free agents per league here:
http://www.fangm.com/football/freeagentlist.php

You can also find a link to 2010 lists on the main free agency page for each league.

No official determination yet on the RFA/UFA differences but at last check more leaning toward keeping the old rules of only the 3 year or under players being RFA instead of under 6 years as in the NFL this year.

[Dustin S.]

completely agree on 3 years and not 6...

and lets fucking do this! god all this talk and the real nfl offseason has me excited, lets start lol