FOF Salary Cap: Retirment and Signing Bonuses

[mckerney]

Understanding the salary cap figure for each player is vital in Front Office Football. When a new contract is signed, the cap figure is determined for the life of the contract. Just divide the bonus by the length of the contract, and add to each year's salary to determine the cap figure for that year.

When a contract is terminated early, because the player is released, traded or reaches an incentive that voids the final season, the cap figure must be adjusted. When you acquire a player via trade, you are not responsible for any of his bonus. But when a player leaves your team, you are still responsible for the entire remaining bonus.

In those cases, you take the remaining bonus and assign it to lost cap room for the next season. Any bonus left over for the current season becomes lost cap room for the current season.

I was talking to someone about what they should do in a multiplayer league salary wise, and I was wondering what is done with signing bonus money against the cap when a player retires. If it's the same as being curt or traded, it would be counted over the next two years, but being it wasn't mentioned along with those two situations I wasn't sure if retirement still counted it over the length of the contract. Thanks to anyone who can provide insight into how this actually works.

[stevew]

I believe it becomes dead money.

[mckerney]

I believe it becomes dead money.

How is the money split up though? Is it over the remainder of what the player had left on his contract when he retired, or is it counted against the cap over the next two years as if the player had been cut.

[stevew]

Ah, thats a good one, I think it is auto excellerated into this year, but Im not 100% positive, so essentially I dont know any more than you.

Ping: Jim maybe?

[mckerney]

Ah, thats a good one, I think it is auto excellerated into this year, but Im not 100% positive, so essentially I dont know any more than you.

Ping: Jim maybe?

I think it's that way to, though I'm not confident enough to say if it's one way or another.

[stevew]

Maybe you could do a quickie season with the Raiders from startup and see what happens....A lot of their old guys quit early.

[Runtheball]

I'm running into this situation in my league, and I'm hoping by resurrecting this thread I might get some more clarification on the subject.

I have a 13 year player that is costing me over 9M per year, and that figure is going to climb dramatically in the coming years. I want to renegotiate to lower his cap cost (releasing him is just not an option), and if successful that would help tremendously for several years. But the signing bonus he wants would raise his bonus money to over 5M per year for the next 5 years. Of course, I don't expect a 13 year player to last another 5 years, so the question is "What happens to all that bonus money if he retires after a year or two?" Certainly if I release him he gets the money, but if he retires? I'm not going to guarantee this guy 5M per year in bonus money and have him retire right away. And if that figure gets accelorated I could take a 20M hit to my cap next year????

Can anyone provide a very clear explanation of how FOF2004 handles this situation? What I've read so far is unclear and/or contradictory.

[cthomer5000]

When a player retires, all remaining bonus hits in that new year (the year in which the retirement is revealed).

QB Joe Football player's contract

2004: 1 million base, 1 million bonus
2005: 1 million base, 1 million bonus
2006: 1 million base, 1 million bonus
2007: 1 million base, 1 million bonus

If he retires after the 2004 season, the cap hit would be 3 million in 2005.

If he retires after 2005, the cap hit would be 2 million in 2006, etc...

[yabanci]

Maybe you could do a quickie season with the Raiders from startup and see what happens....A lot of their old guys quit early.

I have the Raiders in the eNFL and can confirm....You take the full hit the year after he retires. Gannon retired after the 2005 season with three years left on his contract ($1.21m bonus per year for 2006-2008). Consequently, I have $3.63m in dead cap space for the 2006 season ($0 for the 2007 season).