Problem in Franchise Player Deadline phase

[JWeb]

Question. I'm in the "Franchise Player Deadline" phase. When I want to extend the contract of a player in my franchise, I always get the message that my cap is insufficient and that I could release players.
Unfortunately, I can't do that. I would like to do this for players who become free agents. But that is not possible.
Why is the cap not enough if all players who become free agents do not count? There are about 30 players. Shouldn't that be enough cap? Or am I misunderstanding something?

As additional Info: My Team are the Miami Dolphins in FOF (and IRL since Dan "The Man" Marino ;) )

Sorry if I'm assuming the wrong thing here. I'm from Germany and there are no such caps in sports here (unfortunately) ;)

[JWeb]

ok, I was on the "salary cap" page. If I understand correctly, then I have a minus of $36 million on the cap. Wow, so I can hardly keep my good players like Ahmed. I also only have 23 players for next season. That's all right then, right?
Wow, how hard it is with the cap ;)

I think I have to sleep a night who I release and who I want to give a new contract...

Update:
Ok, In the column "next use" it says 155 Mio. Salary Cap for 2024 is 232 Mio. So I have 80 Mio. for Salary. Why I can't give Ahmed a new contract who asks for 15 Mio. This is in range for next year, but unfortanet not in this phase? What I'm doing wrong?

[Rofar1]

I'm also facing salary cap issues after my first season. Makes it interesting :)

[JWeb]

But as I updated in my last post.
Next years cap is 232 Mio. Mine is 155 Mio. So I have a cap. But I can't sign Ahmed who is 15 Mio.
But the problem is, that in this phase, the current cap of the franchise counts although 30 playsers already count as free agents.
I'm sure, when I go on, they are no more in my list, and than I have to search for them and in the worst case they sign somewhere else.

Is this normal?

[SweenDawg72]

But as I updated in my last post.
Next years cap is 232 Mio. Mine is 155 Mio. So I have a cap. But I can't sign Ahmed who is 15 Mio.
But the problem is, that in this phase, the current cap of the franchise counts although 30 playsers already count as free agents.
I'm sure, when I go on, they are no more in my list, and than I have to search for them and in the worst case they sign somewhere else.

Is this normal?

I am not sure I understand your issue. However, your cap amount next year is next year. You still need to have cap available for this year. I am assuming you are in a negative cap situation or just not enough cap space for the current year. So your next year cap amount is irrelevant when needing to resign him.

[JWeb]

Yes, you understood me correctly. Thank you for your explanation.
It's a shame that the players I want to resign are still included in the calculation at this stage. Because without them, I am well below the cap.
To compensate for the negative amount, I would simply not have to resign all of them. In other words, the phase makes no sense to me.

I now have to let them all go as free agents and then replenish them through drafts, trades and other free agents, even though I could simply resign a few of them now.

But then that's just the way the rules are 😉

[JWeb]

Ok, I think I found my fault. The "Franchise Player Deadline" phase is already the new season. And the salary shown on the salary cap page is the one of this year (2024) and the column next year is the year 2025.

Sorry that I didn't understand that at the first time. In German Football (or soccer as you say) the season starts in the middle of the year, and starts with pre season friendly games. The period for trades is later. And resigning happens in the middle of the season or often at the end of the season. Sorry, because of that, I was wrong. In American Football it is a thing of the beginning of a season I guess.

Thanks for the help!

And I have a very challenging job to do, so that I have enough players for the season at the end with this minus 9 Mio. on salary :D

[Rofar1]

I was at the cap limit after the draft and what little free agent signings I could do. Still didn't have enough players on the roster and had no cap room to offer any free agent so I had to set minor roster decisions to be handled by my staff. Somehow, they are able to sign free agents.

[UserFOF9]

I encountered the same issue. I had a budget deficit and was unable to retain my own players or acquire free agents.

I turned minor and major roster decisions over to the AI, and it released a bunch of my players and then resigned them all for around $1,000,000. Now I all of the sudden have over $40,000,000 CAP space.

It appears that something is definitely wrong and buggy with the whole financial system.

[JWeb]

I also let the AI do the things until the last free agent trade day. So I could recap how he managed that.

Now I started my saved game again with the Franchise Players Deadline phase. And, like the AI I did nothing in this phase. I waited until the draft ends.

After that I resigned players with a high salary. Some of them asked now for less salary. I dont know if this is a bug ;) , but I think they are ok with less money, because they played not so well in the season and don't want to be released. So, perhaps this is how it works.

I also resigned some own free agents.

Then I filled my roster with some cheap (under 1 Mio.) deals. Now, with the reduced salary contracts and the cheap free agents, I have enogh players and my salary cap is 15 Mio. :)

I don't know how. But I made 15 Mio. cap out of minus 9 Mio. cap :D