When do you reneg players you have drafted?

[Vaevictis_386]

Is there a sweet spot to get the best value?

What about if you know a guy is going to be great, is it better to enjoy the low salary of the initial contract for as long as you can? Or is it better to pay more in a new contract to get an extra 4th or 5th year out of him at what will be a lower price tag than if you reneg him after he is an established starter/has maxed his development?

Is there still in FOF7 value to wait to offer contracts until you can get them to cover years 4-6 of that guys career?

[Vaevictis_386]

Here's a concrete case:

Good WR. Finishes first season rated 46/58, 26 catches, two starts. He will be a key piece on the team for a long time.

His current cap cost for next three years is 3.8, 4.5, 5.5 mill with 2.7 in bonus each year.

He'll reneg to cost 5.7, 6.6, 7.1 and 5 mill over the next four years for a bonus of 2.2 mill.

Best to just enjoy the savings of the low initial rookie contract?

Best to kick him some cash now to get an extra year of lower salary before you have to reneg him to big time money? Plus, doing that means that when it is time to reneg, he only has a 550,000 bonus hit in the first year, thus avoiding a hard to swallow cap hit from two big bonuses getting added together when you reneg.

If he were much better, say 48/70, would it be worth nailing him down to a 5 year contract on the idea that you'll have him very cheap for 2 years before you have to give him the big time money?

All this is in a situation where injuries are not a big factor, so no worry about risks of long contract.

[aston217]

Light anecdotal evidence has given me reason to suspect the following:


players often lower reneg demands after LFA begins
these may come back up after camp/ex2
these can change dramatically during the season, even if a player isn't starting games. had a backup DE go from 4M/yr to over 10M/yr in one stage after two games he didn't start. He's 51/51. Starting C had similar increase after week 1, when he did start.


There's holdout risk though if you let a high performing, underpaid player get to LFA without a new deal.

And if you do sign early, there's camp risk, as volatility can knock anybody down a peg or three.

For your WR in post #2, I think that makes sense only if you want to keep him at that salary in the new extra 4th year, but not beyond that. If you're just going to sign him long term in that year anyway....

[garion333]

I check early and often. Sometimes you can get a great deal to extend a rookie out a year or two. Usually happens in season 3 as season 2 of their contract is generally them wanting more guaranteed money.