"Leftover" Free Agents

[Karim]

I'm coming late to the party so I did a search but could not find a thread that mentioned this. I'm sure it's been covered somewhere.

I just went through free agency which probably was the best I've seen in this particular career. There were more "Excellent" players than I had ever seen before and their salary demands matched. I couldn't afford any of them but I watched the 12 stages and found that the AI teams couldn't afford them either. In late free agency, everyone passed through as well.

Prior to training camp, it seemed like all their demands went out the window and they all signed 1-year deals for $510k, $690k, etc. This seemed a bit unrealistic but ok. Then I was checking out the rosters of my divisional opponents (I'm the Bears) and found that Green Bay signed *9* Very Good or Excellent players to these type deals.

Their cohesion may be shot but they're 6-2 and leading the division.

If I can get studs on the cheap prior to training camp, maybe I should forego free agency?

[MIJB#19]

What season are you in? I haven't played around much with single player, but from what I've read there can be some irregularities early on in careers where the teams collectively get into cap hell and are forced to release star players.

[Karim]

Thanks. That probably explains it. I'm only in Year 5.

[Karim]

And wouldn't you know, they won the SuperBowl. It'll be interesting to see how bad the drop-off will be.

[MIJB#19]

Btw, wasn't saying that to critique the game, it's something that can happen, afaik. I suppose you're also using 'real' rosters?

[Karim]

No, I'm using fake rosters. It seems to have corrected itself the next season though.

[davehibb]

I've seen this before in a solo career.

These guys seemed like they'd be left on the shelf as it was probably ten or so seasons in and no teams had the cap room to sign them.

Then whoosh! They were signed at the last possible moment on cheap one year deals by AI teams.

If I remember I'd saved my career just at this point, the last available opportunity to sign them but even when I tried offering them 1 year deals I'd be rejected over and over but every time I advanced they always got picked up by the AI teams on cheaper deals than I'd offered.