Well this is a bit odd...

[Front Office Midget]

I'm not one for screenshots, but I'm currently looking at Philadelphia Eagles team with 0 players on the roster. 0 players. This is Pre-FA. They went 11-5 last year, and now have 0 players. They released 34 players in this stage, including last year's 2nd team All-Pro 6th year QB. It's pretty much the most insane thing I've ever seen. The only explanation I can think of is that their GM went insane when he saw that his 8th year RB, who he resigned to a 6 year, $91.84 million contract last year, retired this year. But now Philly is stuck with 0 players and $106 million lost cap room, with only $21 million to sign 46 players with.

[Front Office Midget]

Dola:

It appears like the AI is releasing a LOT of high quality players pre-FA. Looking at the Grey sheet, 11 out of the 13 players rated 6.0 or above had contracts but were released by their teams before FA.

[Front Office Midget]

Dola Dola:

Going into training camp, All Philly has are the 7 rookies they drafted. Kansas City, another team who cut insanely down to 7 players pre-FA, now has 14 players under contract, as they added their rookies and a 20/43 3rd year QB.

Post training camp, Philly has 53 players under contract... 52 rookies. Their lone veteran is a 3rd year QB who has never taken a snap in his career. Their highest rated current player is a 32, highest future is a 51 (and he's not under contract).

I wonder what I have to do to get their 1st round pick next year. :)

[MIJB#19]

Maybe you accindetally clicked the "AI Empty Cupboard Challence" button?

Okay, seriously, is this with 6.0c?

[Front Office Midget]

Haha it's funny, I was looking at their roster and I just thought (I wonder if I should triple dola about their GM going Empty Cupboard) and yes it's with 6.0c.

[Narcizo]

I've seen a human wind up doing much the same thing after losing a lot of guaranteed money. It's easy to get on a downward spiral once you start cutting. Still, it's clearly a bug, but what can you do? (other than put it in the bug thread)?

[MizzouRah]

Yep, report this to Jim via email.

[Ksyrup]

Is this only being seen in 6.0c? I haven't upgraded to c yet and I'm doing just fine with b, so I might just hold off on c unless this has been an ongoing issue.

[highfiveoh]

I've seen a human wind up doing much the same thing after losing a lot of guaranteed money. It's easy to get on a downward spiral once you start cutting. Still, it's clearly a bug, but what can you do? (other than put it in the bug thread)?

A bug? What exactly is the bug? It's just a combination of faulty logic and no, it is not new in 6.0c.

[Subby]

Semantics.

Either way it needs to be fixed.

[QuikSand]

So, assuming that what happened here is that a player walked away from a huge signing bonus, and the team got completely cap-fucked by that... what ought to happen?

Presumably PHI had something like 35 players... and they were already over the cap, because of the weird one-time cap hit. So, presumably the game's logic said "start cutting guys" and kept in that routine until there were no guys left to cut.

What would be a better way out of this kind of mess? Should the team just go into the season with its 35 players, not make any draft picks, not sign anyone, and get the cheap-fill-in solution from the AI when it's absolutely necessary? Would that be the best way for the AI to handle such a catastrophis situation? It obviously can't come up all that often, I wouldn't think -- maybe the fix ought to lie on that end, where a player due a huge bonus shoudl be forced to continue playing, even if the retirement routine says otherwise.

*shurg*

[Passacaglia]

I think the best way out of this mess would be for the human and the AI to know how likely the guy is to retire.

[QuikSand]

I think the best way out of this mess would be for the human and the AI to know how likely the guy is to retire.

But hearing all the foot-stomping above, "likely" isn't good enough.

I tend to agree with your general idea, but from a programming perspective, maybe you need a sort of safety net involved to avoid this sort of cap catastrophe. Like if the retirement routine for any team leads to them having more than 33% of the cap spoace lost in the following season, it gets re-run until the hit is less dramatic?

[highfiveoh]

For starters, bonus money is out of line IMO. I've seen guards and linebackers get in upwards of 40-50 million dollar bonuses in the very first offseason with a default cap rise. To put that into perspective Steve Hutchinson signed a 49 million dollar contract for the Minnesota Vikings, but it only included a 16 million dollar bonus. The bonuses being handed out are not realistic and too many guys getting bonuses like that will come to haunt you at some point. And the guys that do get that kind of bonus money should only be getting it after their rookie contracts for the most part. Too many players in their 8th-10th years are getting huge bonuses and it's inevitable that some of that will turn into a cap it at some point because they usually don't play out the entire contract.

[highfiveoh]

What was the bonus that Peyton Manning got? Around 35 million?

[Shkspr]

Under today's market, I would think that a real-life player would end up paying a substantial part of his bonus back to the team if the cap hit was so huge that it gutted the franchise. I suspect that it would not be in the NFLPA's best interests to allow a team to go "empty cupboard" and so they would not back the player very hard in the resulting dispute.

To me, the most satisfying fix might be to run a check and if the cap hit would be onerous enough for a retirement, to allow the retiring player to make a settlement offer. Accepting it would refund a portion of the bonus money to the team and lessen the cap burden; refusing it would deny the player retirement, but make him unhappy/angry or perhaps throw a red flag onto him, depending on what those do to his skills/team chemistry.

[gstelmack]

Under today's market, I would think that a real-life player would end up paying a substantial part of his bonus back to the team if the cap hit was so huge that it gutted the franchise.

Agreed. There are many contract vagaries not included in FOF.

Another way to fix it might be to have remaining bonus factored in to the retirement calculations, and have a guy with a big salary cap hit simply avoid retirement for another season or two.

[Rizon]

I just checked my league and there are 7 teams like this; they're close to the cap limit and have a roster mostly full of rookies.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Yeah, I think Jim needs to do something about this. It appears it's the retirement thingy that is causing some of the serious problems with AI cap issues.

[twothree]

Here are my random thoughts on the subject. Maybe when an AI team's lost cap room reaches a certain percentage of the salary cap, the AI team should try to avoid increasing it's lost cap room any further.

By that I mean, the AI should avoid releasing anymore players with large amounts of bonus money due in future years, not sign any player to a contract with a large bonus, and probably avoid franchising a player. The AI should just sign players to minimum salaries. Instead of trying to sign the best available player, the AI should look to sign the best available player who will play for a minimum contract.

Another possibility (with a large amount of code to write and debug) might be for the AI to trade away it's early draft picks to another AI team. Since retirements happen at the beginning of the off season, the lost cap room would be known before the draft. If the AI traded away it's early round draft picks to acquire needed players, it would avoid paying out large bonus money to rookies and acquire players who do not have any bonus money due them should they retire the following year.

[Bode]

I believe this is a major bug and should definitely be fixed in the next patch. I dont know what kind of logic would need to be done to do this, but this problem destroys the fun of the game in many ways.

When 2 or 3 teams release all their best players every year it just makes the draft pool rediculous. In my latest free agent draft there is a QB rated 85/85 in the draft. That was the best QB in the league. It would be like indianapolis releasing Peyton Manning. It's because his team had this Cap bug and then just released it's entire roster.

I am positive there is no situation where a team would ever be forced to release thier star quarterback in the prime of his career because of cap room issues. The team that released this quarterback was 14-2 last season. Now I doubt they will win more than 2 games. That kind of major swing just isn't realistic in any stretch of thinking.

[Passacaglia]

I believe this is a major bug and should definitely be fixed in the next patch. I dont know what kind of logic would need to be done to do this, but this problem destroys the fun of the game in many ways.

When 2 or 3 teams release all their best players every year it just makes the draft pool rediculous. In my latest free agent draft there is a QB rated 85/85 in the draft. That was the best QB in the league. It would be like indianapolis releasing Peyton Manning. It's because his team had this Cap bug and then just released it's entire roster.

I am positive there is no situation where a team would ever be forced to release thier star quarterback in the prime of his career because of cap room issues. The team that released this quarterback was 14-2 last season. Now I doubt they will win more than 2 games. That kind of major swing just isn't realistic in any stretch of thinking.

free agent draft? Are you playing Maximum Football?

[Passacaglia]

But hearing all the foot-stomping above, "likely" isn't good enough.

I tend to agree with your general idea, but from a programming perspective, maybe you need a sort of safety net involved to avoid this sort of cap catastrophe. Like if the retirement routine for any team leads to them having more than 33% of the cap spoace lost in the following season, it gets re-run until the hit is less dramatic?

Missed this the first time around. I don't know about re-running the retirement routine -- that seems like it could lead to some exploits (if I give my guy a certain amount of money, then he won't retire). I'd rather make it so that AI doesn't sign the player to this kind of deal, or have some way to make sure certain players don't get cut -- at the very least, make some trades! If the players are all the type where when you click on 'shop player' no one is interested, well...then maybe they should all be cut.

[kingnebwsu]

Something OOTP actually does well that isn't in FOF...some sort of E-mail about a veteran player's retirement status. Not necessarily a "I'm done after this year" E-mail, but maybe my staff's perception of his odds on retiring "We think there's a 70% chance that Deltha O'Neal will retire after this year."

[SegRat]

IMO other roster problems:

In my currebt career, I am going into week 3 of regular season and the Eagles and Chiefs both have unsigned rookie first round draft picks. The problem IMO both teams have 20 million in cap space. Why would they not sign these guys?

[Bode]

free agent draft? Are you playing Maximum Football?

No. FOF2007. It's the free agent signing period right after you choose your scout/staff. A bunch of teams go bust from retirements apparently.

Does anyone know what happens in the NFL? What happens if Peyton Manning retires after this season? Does his team just eat it all in the cap of 1 year? Would indianapolis really just be totally screwed for a whole season? Anyone know the answer to this?

I mean I would think if someone retires they dont get thier money anymore. And maybe if they do get thier bonus they get it over the same period of years that they retired over instead of all in one big lump regarding cap space. If someone has a lot of knowledge about how it really works please let me know.

[Front Office Midget]

No. FOF2007. It's the free agent signing period right after you choose your scout/staff. A bunch of teams go bust from retirements apparently.

Maximum Football is a joke around here. His comment was referring to the fact that you refer to free agency as the "free agent draft", when it's not a draft at all.

[MizzouRah]

IMO other roster problems:

In my currebt career, I am going into week 3 of regular season and the Eagles and Chiefs both have unsigned rookie first round draft picks. The problem IMO both teams have 20 million in cap space. Why would they not sign these guys?

Look in your transactions screen to see how they've tried to sign the player. In my current season KC hasn't been able to sign their 1st round, 7th pick overall DT. When I look, they want to sign him for 6 years only and they keep trying both offers for the 6 years. I like it. They are basically telling this guy, "We are offering you a TON of cash, but you can sit the bench if you want a 5 year deal." :)

[QuikSand]

Does anyone know what happens in the NFL? What happens if Peyton Manning retires after this season? Does his team just eat it all in the cap of 1 year? Would indianapolis really just be totally screwed for a whole season? Anyone know the answer to this?

The NFL is being modeled very closely by FOF here - a midcontract release or retirement compresses any remaining prorated bonus onto the follwing season.

It's not that FOF has his wrong, it's just that a weird series of events could trigger the mess described above. Patch D seems to make a pretty sensibe fix for the "early retirement" situation that could lead to this.

[mrsimperless]

Does anyone know if this is happening only in the early parts of dynasties or later in as well. I know Jim has acknoledged some quirky AI issues within the first few years of dynasties, but I thought this kind of worked itsself out as the league matured, especially if you raise the lower end of your league's salary cap settings.

I just started a new league and I simmed through seasons and am starting in the year 2027 with the Colts. I raised the floor on my cap increases and it is now set at 50 to 80. The one downside to this is that my league cap number is so high now ($245 mil in 2027) that it makes salaries more difficult for me to relate to. I'll let you guys know if I see any similar problems in my league, but I'm playing pretty slow. Too bad there's no transaction log history or I could go back through prior years and check.

[twothree]

Too bad there's no transaction log history or I could go back through prior years and check.

I always save the game under a new name (FOF 2k4) or new league ID (FOF 2k7) at the end of the season. That way you can always go back and look at any year's transaction log, schedule, or season stats. The sacrificed hard drive space is well worth it.

[chinaski]

Going into the 4th year of my dynasty......

Cincy has 10 players under contract at the beginning of the 2nd stage of FA, round 1. They released almost every starter from the previous years team.
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d155/epicmeatwad/rosterwonkiness2.gif

Roster:
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d155/epicmeatwad/rosterwonkiness.gif


Then it gets good.... they sign 44 rookies. Post camp roster shot..
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d155/epicmeatwad/rosterwonkiness3.gif

[RedKingGold]

Can you post Rondell Cole's contract?

[chinaski]

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d155/epicmeatwad/rosterwonkiness4.gif

Looks to be a big part of the problem. Top salary according to the franchise salary levels is 7,950,000 for a QB.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

I bet Sudano's contract is massive as well.

[molson]

I wonder if the AI teams should just have more leeway in going over the cap. Or just make the cap "softer" overall. (You can go over it, but then you lose more draft picks, and can't give a bonus over a certain, limited amount - but enough to get some non-rookies).

[Front Office Midget]

Interesting case... Baltimore was fine, with like 22 players or so pre-draft, and then after it signed its 7 draft players (#7 pick or so), released their whole team other than the rookies, so they now have 7 players. I'm glad I kept some money, as they released an All-Pro Tackle 6 years running. :)

[chinaski]

I bet Sudano's contract is massive as well.

Sundano's is really small actually, he resigned his contract for 9 million over 4 years. Burks and Foster both have 12 million $ current year bonuses and both have their bonus cut in half the following two seasons. Both renegotiated ther contracts 2 seasons after signing 4 year deals.