Contract Holdouts: Do they ever resign?
 

Just because I am lazy and don't feeling like searching.....

Do players that holdout and were not offered a new contract, just ended their holdout, will they ever resign with you or do they always have past injustices?

They don't always have past injustices, but it can be a trigger for past injustices.

My linebacker held out and I didn't offer him anything. Three games into the preseason he ended his holdout, but this is the last year of his contract. I get the "past injustices" whenever I try to re-up with him. I even tried giving him an absurd amount of money, like a $30M bonus and $10M/yr and he still wouldn't consider it.

Can the "past injustices" wear off as the season progresses or does he always harbor the grudge?

My experience is that holdouts do re-sign, sometimes during the exhibition season, sometimes during the regular season.

Those "injustice" dudes, though, seem to hold their grudge forever.

Maybe if you franchise him he'll be more amenable to an extension next year

I had a LB recently who held out on the second last year of his contract, came back just after TC and refused to sign a new deal which sucked because he was a very good player. In the last year of his contract however, he decided that my past injustices were not that unjust and signed a new 4 yr extension. So even if they come back and are pissed off, it is possible for them to become un-pissed but I have only seen it this once.

Ignore them and sometimes they do come back...
 

In a SP historic league I had Lynn Swann hold out in his 4th year of a 5 year contract... prior to training camp. Being unable to afford his new salary request I decided to hold off resigning until after camp where I could trade his ungrateful self to a rich team. After camp I get this Email:

"Sorry coach. I realize loyalty is more important than money so I will report to camp immediately."

I did nothing, he came back and we rocked the next season... of course I had to trade him the following year before he could ask for his millions legitimately.

Wow, I never got any emails. I am in an MP league. My linebacker is in his final season however, so if I don't resign him (if he lets me) he will become a free agent next season. I am hoping that at some point this season his "past injustices" comment goes away and he resigns.

if you franchise him next year you are almost guaranteed a season long holdout

Well it doesn't matter now anyways. The trade deadline approached and I traded him and a 5th Rounder for a 2nd Rounder next year. I didn't want to gamble on him not wanting to resign with me and go to free agency so I figured I should get a decent draft pick for him.:D

I don't franchise much, but I haven't seen a 1:1 relationship between holdouts and franchised players the following years, has anyone else seen this?

Not true, I've franchised a ton of players through the years and only had one hold out during a franchise year. On top of that, rules state a franchise player must make himself available for at least 8 regular season games to become an unrestricted free agent the following season. So if a franchised player does hold out, he will end his hold out in time for your team's 9th game. This happened with my player in FOF2007, so it is also built into the game, it appears. Note: whether you activate the player or not has no effect on him becoming a free agent. Just for the heck of it, I deactivated that player for my last regular season game. We didn't make the playoffs that year, so he only dressed for 7 games, yet he did become an unrestricted free agent.

I'll also add that years later I discovered what appears to be a mistake in FOF2007's franchise tag. It's unlimited. You can franchise the same player as many years in a row as you like. In the NFL you can franchise a player 3 years in a row, maximum. I have a running back who demanded a new contract during a hold out. I didn't have the cap room to give him a raise, so the following year I franchised him. He's been a superstar, rushing for just under 13,000 yards in 8 years. I've franchised him 4 years in a row. His skills are starting to decline a bit, so in practicality, with the 120% raise every year using the franchise tag, he's overpriced. But he refuses to sign an extension 'due to past injustices', so I just keep franchising him. I didn't expect it to work after the 3rd season, but it did.

It's important to separate NFL rules from FOF rules cause they aren't always the same.

I also experienced that the franchise tag works around the past injustices thing.
I had my starting MLB holding out and I didn't see the point in paying him an unreasonable amount. As it turned out I did pretty poorly in drafting LB's so I wanted to resign him when his contract was up, even though he was already declining, but "past injustices".

But somewhen during the franchised season he did resign for a multi-year deal, so all is not lost :)

I was looking to ask a question about holdouts and thought this thread would be a good candidate, with some good and related old discussion.

Does anybody know if there is a limit on how many holdouts you can have hit you at once?

I believe that all holdouts occur after advancing to Late FA. And holdouts are largely a function of two things: past performance, current $$. Theoretically speaking, is it possible for a team to be hit with 5,6,7,+ holdouts all at once? Has this ever happened to anybody?

Holdouts are pretty rare in FOF, so even if nobody has seen one team getting hit with 5+ at a time, that's not necessarily indicative of any sort of in-game limitation.

Most I have ever had at once is 2.

2 is the most I've seen as well, but yeah, I guess there isn't any real evidence of an in-game limitation.

A somewhat related question. I've been told that players who have three or more years left on their deal do not holdout. Any thoughts on this? I know lack of counterexamples is hardly definitive.

One of my gazillion current holdout risks is a star QB who signed a 55mm/5 year extension last season. He just won a bowl - after losing bowls the previous two years - and his current reneg asking price is in excess of double what he's being paid now. He is currently signed for four years.

serious cheese answer-

If you cap out any player who you deem is a potential hold out risk, they won't hold out. I believe this to be a shortcoming of the game where you cannot renegotiate with the same player 2 times in a year.

You can even cap out as little as like 50K in bonus, and subtract 50k from the first year salary if you want to be especially cheesy.

Oh yea. I know the capout trick, it's clever...sometimes :-P I don't think it is too much of a shortcoming because capouts typically, are not a good idea. Maybe at the end of a career. But otherwise, your guy needs to get extended anyway, and it'll just hurt a little bit more when it does happen because he'll have more dead bonus sitting on his deal.

The thing with the QB is I don't want to be in the same position next year and have to continually cap him out. That would make his next negotiation hurt quite a bit. So if it's true that a guy with 4 years or 3 years left in his deal WON'T hold out, I'll take advantage and save the capout for 2 years left.