Patriots/Cowboys trade CFFL

[sportznut]

I think GMs need to quit spending so much time figuring out how to beat the system, and just enjoy having a league like this available.

I couldn't agree more, but I think its inevitable. No matter how many rules you have set in place, someone will always search for a loophole.

[sportznut]

This was in no way "collusion" in that we would each just match the offer, and get our players for less money.

Obviously, it appears as collusion. However, I assure you it's not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion

Collusion is an agreement, usually secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage[citation needed]. It is an agreement among firms to divide the market, set prices, or limit production. [1] It can involve "wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship between the colluding parties."[2] All acts affected by collusion are considered void.[3]

Jared, I agree with many of the things you're saying here, but that still doesn't change the fact that this is absolutely collusion.

Just my .02

[sportznut]

I want to say though, that I agree with sooner. Shady deals are still happening just like always.

I'm not here to point fingers at anyone, but two wrongs don't make a right.

People need to stop pointing the finger, and saying "so and so go away with it, so why can't I," and instead look for a solution to the problem.

[Ben C.]

I have a couple of thoughts here.

1. The case presented here is collusion and is the type the system we implemented this year was intended to prevent. We don't want backroom deals for players when compensation is involved. We want the market to be the suitable place to determine the value of a player (no matter how outrageous the market is this year, it still is the best place long-term to determine values).

2. The loophole to the new rule is ironically not even being used here. The proper way this deal could have gone down (within the loophole) is to trade the secondary players separately and trade the rights to each player in another trade. Then each team would be required to see if the market put a contract on their newly acquired franchise player. If not, the team would be permitted to extend the contract as per the franchise player rules.

As a GM of a team with a lot of spending money in the league involved, the picks required to bid on the players involved, and an interest in at least one of the players (Mankins), I will say that I am rather disappointed with this deal. If I had known the compensation was other than the two firsts, I can't say for sure that I would have bid on Mankins. However, I surely would have thought about it.

Jared has brought up some rules that I am adamantly against (particularly the thoughts on restricted free agents), and some that I could potentially get behind. However, I will reserve my thoughts on those until official discussions next off-season.

My final thought is that once the off-season begins, everyone should do everything they can to play within the rules established for the year. If you have an issue, make a note of it, send a PM to Troy, and do whatever you can to remember the issue. But wait to bring it up during the proper time for discussions. Most of all, don't create a situation where the issue must be discussed immediately. Disagreements and problems like this are bad for the league as a whole.

[Jared A]

Ben,

If you're interested in Mankins... Dallas has mentioned he would be willing to accept a similarly rated player in his trade block. So, all you would need to do is contact him with a proposal.


Everyone,

I don't believe this was a "back room" deal... because we both posted trade blocks that mentioned we'd be interested in landing similar players as compensation. Also, there's a reason I brought it out in the public... even after Goodel said he would "reluctantly" allow the deal to go through.

I completely agree that people need to quit finding loopholes.

[Dan M]

I have a couple of thoughts here.

1. The case presented here is collusion and is the type the system we implemented this year was intended to prevent. We don't want backroom deals for players when compensation is involved. We want the market to be the suitable place to determine the value of a player (no matter how outrageous the market is this year, it still is the best place long-term to determine values).

2. The loophole to the new rule is ironically not even being used here. The proper way this deal could have gone down (within the loophole) is to trade the secondary players separately and trade the rights to each player in another trade. Then each team would be required to see if the market put a contract on their newly acquired franchise player. If not, the team would be permitted to extend the contract as per the franchise player rules.

As a GM of a team with a lot of spending money in the league involved, the picks required to bid on the players involved, and an interest in at least one of the players (Mankins), I will say that I am rather disappointed with this deal. If I had known the compensation was other than the two firsts, I can't say for sure that I would have bid on Mankins. However, I surely would have thought about it.

Jared has brought up some rules that I am adamantly against (particularly the thoughts on restricted free agents), and some that I could potentially get behind. However, I will reserve my thoughts on those until official discussions next off-season.

My final thought is that once the off-season begins, everyone should do everything they can to play within the rules established for the year. If you have an issue, make a note of it, send a PM to Troy, and do whatever you can to remember the issue. But wait to bring it up during the proper time for discussions. Most of all, don't create a situation where the issue must be discussed immediately. Disagreements and problems like this are bad for the league as a whole.

Ben, thanks for saving me the time of having to jot down my thoughts.

I agree with each point, especially that we need to consciously work as a whole to maintain the integrity of the league.

[Jared A]

• Tampa Bay has signed franchise player Chris Snee (|G|) to a 6 year offer-sheet @ 10,000,000/yr with 3,000,000 signing bonus and 0 annual roster bonus - NO will have 48 hours to match the offer or receive 2 first round picks - (2010-04-04) »

Royce Matched this offer...



This is right about 2.5mil less than Royce could have signed him had a team not made an offer.

I use this one, because it just happened. It happens often. Wether it was a collusive bid (I don't think it was at all) or just a shot in the dark hoping he wouldn't match... it doesn't matter. It creates an uneven playing field.

Royce can match the offer, and it's not a big deal.


Onyx and I can each make these bids on the players... we can both match, and then we can do the trade... and that's ok?

My point is... the issue isn't the competition for the player, in my opinion, it's the contract. I can't see how a GM should be allowed to profit from another GM's bid. THAT'S the problem.

[Goodell]

We'd have to get rid of free market bidding based upon demand and have identical contracts for similar groups and have a system completely different from the NFL we try to mirror for that to ensure the end result was equal for all.

The playing field is intended to be fair, not the end result. The competition is intended for BIDDERS to have the same opportunities on the marketplace to place an informed bid with the same information as other bidders, not that all SELLERS all get identical end results. Demand determines which sellers have products that more of the bidders want.

The end result is the finish line that all teams are trying to reach. We aren't intending that all teams to cross the line at the same time with the same amount for fairness. The game is the race and competition to get there. We want track to be fair, not necessarily the outcome because the gameplay decides the outcomes. The league couldn't legislate the final outcomes of bidding wars or it wouldn't be a free agency marketplace or look anything like the NFL signing process where players in most demand get the deals.

It's an uneven field because some guys have better bids placed than others? That's always going to be the case in free agency. Some guys slip through without a lot of attention because there are so many at the beginning and limited number of bids to place, while guys at the end have a different market. Or most of the teams with the biggest pockets maybe all have huge defense needs and over-bid on guys on that side of the ball while under-representing bids on the offensive players because the demand is less there. It's driven by supply and demand, not legislated equality of end result. It's driven by teams competing with each other for limited supplies.

Even in the baseball sim leagues I'm in there's usually like 2 bids sent in a day and often a guessing game as to whether your bid will be a little higher or not than someone else putting in a bid. I put in 1.35M and damn somebody else guessed 1.375 and my bid's wasted with only two teams in a bidding war to set a market price. I love those leagues but here we strive for a more involved bidding process in hopes of more market driven prices with more chances to keep players from falling through the cracks, but there always seems to be some forces that impact which guys get more attention than maybe they should and which get less. But in the end the conditions are fair to all where everybody knows the price and everyone has the opportunities and it's up to the GMs to make the best of that market with many equal bidding opportunities.

In football and in sim leagues, though, sometimes all it takes also is one team to throw off a market. One team to over-value a player and it changes his market. And if you wanted that one guy too it sucks that someone else does too and wants to over-pay, but that's the game both here and in NFL reality of the market. That's the competition. But the game is about giving those teams their own choices, not legislating that all players of the same ability or grade have identical end results, or that all teams with free agents get identical number of bids for their players. Market demand and teams competing with each other resolves that in the game play.

As mentioned before, though, I agree with some of the points made and we do probably do need to do something different in terms of bid requirements -- if only to take away the temptation to try to work a lower price otherwise. That may resolve much of it if there is no way to pay less through manipulating the bidding outside of the game intentions. Most GMs voted that they didn't want that to continue, and we tried some things this year and if most continue to agree with that we'll try some new things next year to avoid market manipulation as much as we can. And maybe introduce new options for retaining players beyond free agency bidding. All of that is open to discussion, been voted on before, and will continue to be explored before future seasons.

But I don't think there's any to ensure that one team's free agents are targetted equally to another team's. Nor should there be if we have an open market where teams can decide who they like for themselves and demand overall decides which players get the most attention. That to me isn't an uneven field. That's part of any free agency in any open marketplace.

Some super bowl teams get picked apart the following free agency year in reality. That's not "fair" perhaps in some views and that team probably doesn't like it, but that's where the market demand goes and teams wanting those players in particular. That's the free agency game.

We don't set out to ensure that player X and player Y get identical bids if similar players, or that their team A or team B get identical demand place upon their players. That's not the fairness we are looking for. Just that trickery or secret compensation or manipulation of the market be avoided to eliminated so that all BIDDERS are on the same field competing and that demand decides those outcomes.

[soonertf]

• Tampa Bay has signed franchise player Chris Snee (|G|) to a 6 year offer-sheet @ 10,000,000/yr with 3,000,000 signing bonus and 0 annual roster bonus - NO will have 48 hours to match the offer or receive 2 first round picks - (2010-04-04) »

Royce Matched this offer...



This is right about 2.5mil less than Royce could have signed him had a team not made an offer.

I use this one, because it just happened. It happens often. Wether it was a collusive bid (I don't think it was at all) or just a shot in the dark hoping he wouldn't match... it doesn't matter. It creates an uneven playing field.

Royce can match the offer, and it's not a big deal.


Onyx and I can each make these bids on the players... we can both match, and then we can do the trade... and that's ok?

My point is... the issue isn't the competition for the player, in my opinion, it's the contract. I can't see how a GM should be allowed to profit from another GM's bid. THAT'S the problem.

I agree with Jared. Especially toward the end of FA, Franchise players tend to get low bids in hopes the GM will let them go for two #1s. Most of the time, the GM will keep their star player at a bargain (who would blame them?) The 75% floor is simply too low for Franchise and Transition Players. It needs to be raised to at least 100% if not 110%. A player isn't going to leave their comfrot zone for a lower contract, so 75% just isn't common sense.

Troy, I agree some players in real life do get signed at a bargain, but not top level players. Another thing I would mind seeing, is having a minimum bid based on grade level. This might be too dificult to maintain, but it would prevent an A RFA player geting locked up at $2m/yr for 7 years. I don't think there is a 100% solution, but I think fixing the 75% next off-season would be a great start. Then it wouldn't matter if there is a side deal made, because the player still gets signed at market value.

[Royce R]

I like the 75% rule so you can put in a high SB.