2010 RULES: 2010 CAP

[soonertf]

Do we have the article that speaks about the $132M? If so I think we should lean toward that way. I definitely don't think we need to exceed the $137M. Not only does it inflate the makret, it also takes away from the GMs that have planned properly over the past few years.

[Goodell]

Do we have the article that speaks about the $132M? If so I think we should lean toward that way. I definitely don't think we need to exceed the $137M. Not only does it inflate the makret, it also takes away from the GMs that have planned properly over the past few years.

Not an article I don't believe. It was a Houston Texans salary cap website (link provided by member here) that just listed salary caps by year with 2010 estimated and showing that figure. Not sure what went into that.

[Dustin S.]

i believe the cap needs to be raised, but no need for it to go over 137m. i voted for the 132. i think it raises it enough, but doesnt go up alot. i'd be fine if it was 137 as well. i think when the cap comes back to the nfl, it will probably be lower, so your not gonna wanna put it very high, because that will create a ton of problems (lets not forget, there will most likely be a lockout, which will only increase the likelihood of a lower cap), so i think 132, 137 is fine, and we will just have to wait and see where the cap is when it comes back.

[Goodell]

I have the team roster pages now set up for 2010. Please look over them. I'll also have an archived version of your roster as it stood this morning for comparison later this weekend. Let me know if any problems.

Another important reason for doing this is that we can now see the financial shape of teams for 2010 much better now as we think about what the artificial cap should be.

This is just preliminary figures. There is some possibility that I messed something up in the data conversion so let me know if you notice something funny. Also remember that cap space can be quickly created thru a big contract restructuring or cutting of a high priced player as often happens in NFL off-seasons.

I have it set for each league to $128M which was the NFL's cap last year. We may go up (137M leading followed by 132M), but also important for people to look at the team situations before we have a final cap number for next year.

There were some teams who were in debt at the end of this 2009 season. I take much of the blame for some of that myself with not having better estimated cap figures for transactions, but in fairness to all the other teams who were close to their cap at season's end and didn't make any cuts putting them well over, I added a Dead Money Debt for 2009 to those teams in the negative. I didn't take the full negative amount, but reduced that by the empty space (310K per empty roster spot) being charged which should be about the impact that would have happened if those transactions waited til the off-season. There were a handful of teams with some dead money from debt moved into this year. Let me know if questions on that.

For how the leagues shape up going into 2010 upon preliminary glance...

AFFL: At 128M, every team except one already has over $10M in available cap space -- and one team has 83M in cap space available. 20 teams have over 30M available. 10 have over 50M available.

CFFL: This league is in even better shape in terms of cap savings. Every team has at least 13M available -- topped by one team over 70M. 25 teams have over 30M available. 7 have over 50M.

DFFL: This new league has a couple franchises in adverse cap situations. Two teams enter the off-season already in the red -- Dallas being 45M over. They've come up frequently as perhaps the real Dallas squad built for the realization of uncapped 2010, but I'll try to look into that further if any errors there, or discussing with the GM there some possible ways of getting under if they wish. 6 more teams have less than 10M available. 14 teams have over 30M avilable. 2 have over 50M available.

Raising the cap to 137M would give every team 9M more, taking some over 70-90M available for spending in the extremes. How that could effect prices on the market is something else to consider if we move our artificial cap higher from 128M as the finances are currently based upon at this moment or leave it there. This poll allows for changing your vote if the league financial information has you seeing it differently now.

I'll have teams look over their rosters and league finances and hopefully we'll arrive at a conclusion early next week.

[Dustin S.]

wow, if there is that much cap available, we should just keep that the same, but i can say that, bc i'm the one with the 83 mil in AFFL

[Royce R]

The cap may look like a lot but we have a TON more FA than the real NFL does.

With so many roster spots to fill each season because we have no way of extending our players. Thus we go into each offseason with unrealistic franchise and transition players. Which will be shown as cap space right now. But 1 franchise player will pretty well mean no cap space for those teams with 10 mil cap space. If you add a transition player to that then they are in the red already.

[Goodell]

The cap may look like a lot but we have a TON more FA than the real NFL does.

With so many roster spots to fill each season because we have no way of extending our players. Thus we go into each offseason with unrealistic franchise and transition players. Which will be shown as cap space right now. But 1 franchise player will pretty well mean no cap space for those teams with 10 mil cap space. If you add a transition player to that then they are in the red already.

True. Yeah, signing 10M players will eat into that... but for teams without a lot of cap space there's nobody forcing them to sign 10M+ players either. If no cap space, have to cut ties with the guy too expensive and get a cheaper replacement as they do in the NFL often for financial reasons.

[Dustin S.]

i plan on using alot of my cap. watch out

[Royce R]

The cap may look like a lot but we have a TON more FA than the real NFL does.

With so many roster spots to fill each season because we have no way of extending our players. Thus we go into each offseason with unrealistic franchise and transition players. Which will be shown as cap space right now. But 1 franchise player will pretty well mean no cap space for those teams with 10 mil cap space. If you add a transition player to that then they are in the red already.

True. Yeah, signing 10M players will eat into that... but for teams without a lot of cap space there's nobody forcing them to sign 10M+ players either. If no cap space, have to cut ties with the guy too expensive and get a cheaper replacement as they do in the NFL often for financial reasons.

Thats correct, I'm not complaining or anything of the sort. Was just trying to point out that there isn't as much cap space as it may seem.

I voted for the one that is winning right now, so I'm not trying to argue anything

[Goodell]

I know, me either. But also hoping that a lot of the newer GMs who want to be competitive and win also get that like real life our franchises will sometimes have to let elite players sign elsewhere or even outright cut them completely because of their cap numbers.

My team for example is in the bottom 3 of available cap space in the AFFL (but I'm still voting personally for 128M). There will be a lot of players we're going to end up cutting (or trading) and probably not going to be able to resign some of the free agents (one of them a 95 rating) -- or maybe we make deep enough cuts that we can afford to sign some other solid guys. Outside of a real surprise or big trade, we could be around a .500 type squad, but maybe much better if our affordable RB/QB have big years. But don't have the cash to acquire guys at the upper end of the payscale, so that's what we can afford and we'll see...

That's the great thing about our league in comparison to the baseball sim leagues (love those too, though!) is that the next season isn't known and there isn't a projection disk ahead of time. You might have to slash contracts all summer and cut a stud RB who gets paid too much but maybe one of your young backups steps up in reality have some Jerome Harrison or Jamaal Charles games that you can ride to a playoff run anyway. As a GM have to mostly take care of the finances and try to get as much potential as you can within those limits (some years more limiting than others) and then just see what happens.