2010 RULES: Player Contract Extensions

[Goodell]

I think we've had a poll like this in past seasons. I don't really like the idea of me coming up with some generated number for every individual as a possible long-term contract option, but instead try to let the market decide the price but give home teams big advantages in retaining their own players if they have cap room to do so. But want to get a feel for where most people are with this now versus past polls.

[Goodell]

I think I've brought up the possibility of a team using a real contract re-signing before, but if we ever did that we'd have to figure out how that impacts the financials exactly with one deal already on the books and another extension signed. It gets a little complicated because the player here might have had a very different sim contract than he had in reality.

Say he signs a pretty big sim contract one off-season here, and in reality the next season the real version of him signs a real contract in the NFL that his sim team wants to use instead because maybe it's a better contract than the sim one they signed him too. We'd have to figure out the finances for how to extend the sim contract (because that can't be ignored or pretend that it didn't happen) to also include the real contract.

Also complications if he's signed to a 7-year sim contract, but signs a 5-year contract in reality that the team wants to use the next season. I don't think we'd void out that 7-year deal for the shorter one but have to work out how those two contracts could be merged. Or maybe can't allow accepting a real contract if for less years than the sim one already signed.

Could be doable, but just would be something to figure out financially in how it impacts our sim cap if most of the league wanted to go toward that option. Because at one time I believe I was in favor of bringing in real contracts signed possibly, but just go very complicated to figure out when the details were to be worked out. Maybe someone has a good idea for how to do that if that's where most GMs want to go.

[Royce R]

I like the possibility of doing this.

Just wanting to dig a little deeper before I made a vote.

I've thought on how we could work this some myself and some of my thoughts were things like being able to extend only on rookie deals. Don't know if that's really fair or not but if we started out there and found out the good and bad of what we were doing before we started extending everyone.

Something else would be only when they have 1 year left on their deal. Also these are just some things I have thought about and would love to get feedback on all the negatives that could come of this.

Would the prices be gauged by setting a price per each grade of player. A player has "X" price, A- player has "Z" price, B+ player has "Y" price. And so on.

Some other things would be only being able to extend 1 player per offseason?

Anyway I love the idea and hope we get a lot of conversation going on this one because I think this would be a nice addition to the game.

[RebelFan]

Something else would be only when they have 1 year left on their deal. Also these are just some things I have thought about and would love to get feedback on all the negatives that could come of this.

Some other things would be only being able to extend 1 player per offseason?

Anyway I love the idea and hope we get a lot of conversation going on this one because I think this would be a nice addition to the game.

Those are good ideas I think, while (even though I voted for it) I'm not entirely convinced that this can work. 1 extension per year (such as the restructuring function) sounds like a viable option though.

[Joe]

Can any of the 12 who voted keep it the same explain why? Just curious

[Ben C.]

Can any of the 12 who voted keep it the same explain why? Just curious

I voted to keep it the same way. The tools we have in place are the best options for the league as a whole, in my opinion. We have the following tools that when used effectively can keep players on your team while making sure their contract is fair. These tools all make sure that players go on the market at some point and all teams have access to all players in the league.

If someone can convince me why the ability to extend contracts at some made up rate would be better for the long-term fairness of this league, then I might consider changing my position. But as it stands, it seems to be fairest that players must be on the market at some point.

Tools we currently have:

- Franchise Tag - Use this on one player per year that you want to keep (or trade away and receive compensation). This gets even more useful if we go with an exclusive franchise tag where a player can only resign at certain levels with the team (not on the market). Really, the exclusive franchise tag option would essentially be the same thing as extending 1 player's contract.

- Transition Tags - Give you the right to match two player's contracts without having to go higher than the contract they've been offered.

- Unlimited bids on UFAs - You can bid on your own players as much as you want, essentially allowing you to match any contract (though really you have to go higher than the previous bid each time).

- Restricted Free agents - your young players can be given tenders as RFAs. If they receive a contract from another team, you can match it or receive compensation. If they don't receive a contract, you've in effect extended their contract by 1 year (at a higher rate).

[Jared A]

I can see it both ways. The way we use transition tags is very similar to getting an extension. The real NFL hardly uses transitions... and it allows us to extend a couple players every year at fair market value.

[dinkatoid]

I think it would be possible to work out the real contract idea if everyone wanted to and there were guidelines put into effect. I am not sure Goddell would like this cause it just makes more work for him, but it is just some general thoughts.

- If you could extend contracts, I agree that it should be limited to just 1 or 2 extensions per season. You obviously can not allow a team to just extend everyone they want. I think 1 would be the better number, but obviously this would be debated if this were even the choice.

- I think there needs to be an increase in salary. If the real player gets signed for more than the sim player, the sim owner has the choice to use that deal. I would not take the physical deal (as in 7 years for xx million), but do the math to get the money per year, and take that number to extend it say 2-3 years. That way you can't cash in on a cheap 7 year deal or something. If the real player gets signed to a deal less than what your sim player had on the previous deal, then find the % increase in the real players deal, and add that to the sim player.

- I think there should also be a restriction so you can only extend a certain player once, so you could not just keep buying that current player over and over and keep them for their whole playing career.

The thing I would not know how to account for is if the real player got signed for lets say a 7 year deal, and your sim players current deal runs out in year 4 of that 7 year deal. Obviously prices have changed depending on his performance since that deal hit, so I am not sure how you would handle this. If a player was seriously injured and his playing skills decline or if he hits a breakout year, his value would obviously majorly fall or rise, so it would be hard to judge what his current worth would be. The only thing I could think would be basically to make it so every year he gained x% more value, and if his skills declined, you obviously don't want to resign him.

However, after typing all of this I see how ridiculous all this would be to try to keep up with, and I am changing my vote to keep it like it is.

[Royce R]

I think you might have went a little deep into it.

I don't see how we can possibly use real contracts as its just not the same market here. So to me I think we need to look into grades being the way to do it.

I mean lets face it in the real NFL do the star players really reach FA? Not very often. Have the colts ever had to worry about franchise tagging Manning? Nope they make sure his contract is taken care of.

Sure there is the occasional player that doesn't like his team and wants to move on. But compare our franchise tag numbers to the real NFL. We have WAY more.

If you look at it as only being able to extend 1 player per year are we really going to have a lot of guys trying to extend C rated players, or our we going to try and lock up our good players like the real NFL does.

And you make it at a price comparable to what they would make if they did make the FA market. With a good portion of it in SB. Because if you notice most extended players like the money up front. So it makes sure people aren't extended players and then cutting them with no worries.

[John W.]

I may be confused on the issue, but the way I read it was that if a player extended in the NFL the GM would have the option of taking that contract. What if his current AFFL contract had no similarities to that contract? I don't see where as a rule you can all of a sudden take the NFL contract and work it in. We don't take draft contracts from the NFL either, we base our figures on them, but ours are based on the current dynamic of the league.