Bogus 2nd and 3rd year money

[wade moore]

Ben and I are debating this in chat and I want to know how the league feels.

We passed the 3 year deal rule.

Gabe Herndon signed with ATL for a 3 year, 61 mil deal.

When you look at the deal it's:

30k bonus
year 1: 560k
year 2: 30mil
year 3: 30mil


Am I the only one that has an issue with this?

[Shard77]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Ben and I are debating this in chat and I want to know how the league feels.

We passed the 3 year deal rule.

Gabe Herndon signed with ATL for a 3 year, 61 mil deal.

When you look at the deal it's:

30k bonus
year 1: 560k
year 2: 30mil
year 3: 30mil


Am I the only one that has an issue with this?

So on a $61 MM deal, only $960 K is guaranteed?

[Ben E Lou]

No. Only 30K. Salary isn't paid until the preseason starts.

The issue here is that I threw an essentially minsal offer at a decent guy to be my #2/#3 QB. No one else offered him a dime, which is the key here. He would have signed anywhere for anything better than that. If any of the 31 (well, maybe 28...can't say what the 3 whose exports got removed did) other owners in the league had offered this guy even a 60K bonus and small contract, he would not be a Falcon this year. Bonus and year one salary will trump everything else, but if no one is paying enough attention to offer a guy something, then he'll take whatever he can get. *shurg*

[Ben E Lou]

Oh...and by the way, that contract you posted is not what I offered or he signed.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Oh...and by the way, that contract you posted is not what I offered or he signed.

:eyeroll:

Let's distract because I got the minsal number wrong:

30k bonus

year 1: 940k
year 2: 30mil
year 3: 30mil



I was trying to let others get their $.02 in before tainting with ben and i bickering, but i guess that's dead.

Ben feels the argument against this is that no one else offered. That doesn't play in it at all for me. My issue that this is a complete slap in the face of the 3 year deal rule. For me, the point of that rule was that people would have to make real commitments to quality players. I don't think a deal that escalates like this should be allowed.

[Shard77]

Well, since there is no rule against it, I'm not sure (Even if there had been other offers that got rejected) there's anything that can be done about it. Short of complaining that it's totally unrealistic and violates the "spirit of the rule", it's within the current league rules.

The benefits to Ben are obvious:

1) No financial exposure.
2) Virtually no cap hit this year.
3) Can renegotiate and lock up player next year or simply release him with virtually no financial implications.

Even given the huge dollar figure, I'm surprised he didn't wait a little longer to see if he could get more guaranteed money.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Shard77

Well, since there is no rule against it, I'm not sure (Even if there had been other offers that got rejected) there's anything that can be done about it. Short of complaining that it's totally unrealistic and violates the "spirit of the rule", it's within the current league rules.

The benefits to Ben are obvious:

1) No financial exposure.
2) Virtually no cap hit this year.
2) Can renegotiate and lock up player next year or simply release him with virtually no financial implications.

Even given the huge dollar figure, I'm surprised he didn't wait a little longer to see if he could get more guaranteed money.

I don't bring this discussion up to say that ben literally cheated and should be punished.

I bring it up to see if others have an issue with it to determine if we need to change the rules or the interpretation of the rules.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Shard77

2) Can renegotiate and lock up player next year or simply release him with virtually no financial implications.

Actually I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I *think* he'll request that 30M salary be moved into a bonus & minsal for any reneg. (That's how this usually works.) The reneg request will be something like a $29M bonus, $1M year one salary, and then some number of years. But really, this wasn't even a guy I particularly wanted or needed. *IF* he ends up being my #2 QB, he will only be a very minor upgrade from my existing #2. And there's at least some chance that he'll get cut before the season starts, depending on what happens with my 2nd-year QB in training camp. My other backup QB is a mentor, so he's a sure thing to make the roster.

[Ben E Lou]

(DOLA: That comment was specifically on the reneg part of it.)

The thing to learn about FOF here (and that's one of the goals of this league is to learn better how things work) is that in MP, FAs will accept any ol' offer if they get nothing better. And sometimes they'll even accept that offer in FA1:2. In other words, if no one had offered this guy anything and I'd offered minbonus, minsal, minsal, minsal, I'd have gotten him for that. This happened numerous times in the ECFL when we only had 8 humans. The AI ignored some guys and humans either couldn't afford or just didn't offer them. I'd have to look back for the details, but I know I got a DE who was around 57/57 and had 10-15 sacks the year before for a 3-year minbonus/all minsal deal.

For that reason, I've taken to offering *something* to just about every guy above a certain rating (around 45/45 in normal leagues, around 50/50 in this one since we have more good FAs), even if I don't need the guy. Better for him to sit the bench for me for peanuts than to be useful to someone else for peanuts.

[Sef0r]

Here is my opinion.

From what I gather on the 3 year rule, you make a commitment and push money into a quality player for 3 years. If you release after a year, normally you will obvious take the hit of the bonus money offered. In your case Ben, if you release the player next year, you don't take a hit which esentially means you have basically signed him up for a 1 year deal.

The chances of you signing a number 2/3 QB for what you say is a large reneg deal is very, very unlikely so the only logical thing that you are going to do is release the player and still be well off, no hit on the cap.

Just my 2c

[Ben E Lou]

Oh sure. Unless I'm hit with some major ratings-reducing injuries at QB, the guy is only with me for one season. The impact of the contract is obvious. All I'm saying is that there's a very, very, very easy way to keep someone from doing this: for any one of the other 31 owners in the league to make an offer--even a *REALLY* lowball offer compared to what he was asking. If people are interested, I can run some tests on my other machine tonight to see for sure what would happen, but I'm fairly sure that an offer of, say, a $1.5M bonus and 3 years of minsal would have won out over mine--still a trivial amount relative to the cap room that most teams have, and for three times as long if he doesn't hold out.

[zbuckley]

obviously you could fill a squad with these type deals because of the cap ramifications.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by zbuckley

the 30mil signing bonus is locked into the salary cap. either renegotiating or release him won't get around it.

There's a 30k signing bonus.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Oh sure. Unless I'm hit with some major ratings-reducing injuries at QB, the guy is only with me for one season. The impact of the contract is obvious. All I'm saying is that there's a very, very, very easy way to keep someone from doing this: for any one of the other 31 owners in the league to make an offer--even a *REALLY* lowball offer compared to what he was asking. If people are interested, I can run some tests on my other machine tonight to see for sure what would happen, but I'm fairly sure that an offer of, say, a $1.5M bonus and 3 years of minsal would have won out over mine--still a trivial amount relative to the cap room that most teams have, and for three times as long if he doesn't hold out.

If you're really going to go through this, I think I personally would be more concerned with whether he signs this deal if it is one year, 30k, 960k. My concern is that a 1 year deal has been fabricated with fake money in year 2 and 3. Or hell, if he does 3 years, 30k bonus, and minsal every year.

Because 1.5mil in bonus is at least SOME commitment in bonus for future years.

[eiskrap]

I don't have a problem, if anyone else had wanted him they could have got him. Its not realistic but then its only a game, and I don't think it really defeats the point of the three year deal.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by zbuckley

obviously you could fill a squad with these type deals because of the cap ramifications.

Well, yeah. It isn't hard to fill up a squad with players no one else bothered to offer.

The thing is, usually those players you filled yoru squad with would be rated around 35/35. It just happened that it was a usable QB who was completely overlooked by 28-31 other owners this time.

[zbuckley]

Originally Posted by wade moore

There's a 30k signing bonus.

sorry I thought it was 30mil.

[Julio Riddols]

I think its kind of taking advantage of the situation. I don't like it because yes, it is essentially a one year deal. There is no way you could argue that it is anything else. The reason we made the 3 year deal rule was to avoid one year deals being made like this. We also made a rule that disallowed franchising a player, but this is effectively a one year deal with exclusive renegotiation rights next season.

Basically, this equates to breaking both rules in spirit without actually breaking either rule technically. Thats what doesn't sit right. It almost seems worse than actually breaking the rule.

[Ben E Lou]

So are you saying it would be better if I'd offered a three-year deal at ALL minsal and locked him up long-term at the cheap rate because no one else bothered to offer him anything?

[MalcPow]

It's not a workaround for the franchise tag really. If you've got a balloon salary year, the player thinks he's entitled to that money as bonus in a reneg in FOF logic. So it'd be damn expensive to reneg him next year.

It's a weird thing. I don't think Ben really gained an advantage so much as he did something funky to ensure he got a marginal guy for a year. With any kind of competition for the guy he would have lost. *shurg*

[Shard77]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

...I've taken to offering *something* to just about every guy above a certain rating (around 45/45 in normal leagues, around 50/50 in this one since we have more good FAs), even if I don't need the guy. Better for him to sit the bench for me for peanuts than to be useful to someone else for peanuts.

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

So are you saying it would be better if I'd offered a three-year deal at ALL minsal and locked him up long-term at the cheap rate because no one else bothered to offer him anything?

I guess one question I would have is: if your general philosophy is to try to simply grab guys that no one else bothers to make an offer on, why wouldn't you just offer a minimal bonus and (3) years of min salary? Why the huge salaries in years 2 and 3?

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

If people are interested, I can run some tests on my other machine tonight to see for sure what would happen, but I'm fairly sure that an offer of, say, a $1.5M bonus and 3 years of minsal would have won out over mine--still a trivial amount relative to the cap room that most teams have, and for three times as long if he doesn't hold out.

I would be curious to know the results of this test. Not just for this particular instance, but also for future reference.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MalcPow

If you've got a balloon salary year, the player thinks he's entitled to that money as bonus in a reneg in FOF logic. So it'd be damn expensive to reneg him next year.

I know I've already said it in this thread, but this bears highlighting, because I doubt that most people realize that this mechanism is in the game now. If they did, all the unnecessary rules against backloading would have gone away all over the place.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Shard77

I guess one question I would have is: if your general philosophy is to try to simply grab guys that no one else bothers to make an offer on, why wouldn't you just offer a minimal bonus and (3) years of min salary? Why the huge salaries in years 2 and 3?

That's not my philosophy. If you tried to do that in a 32-team league where most people are paying attention, it would never, ever, ever work. You'd end up with a team full of 35/35-40/40 type players. I always throw some 3-year minsal deals into the mix just in case, and I did have a player sign on in FA1:2--one who looks like he could be a decent nickel/dime corner, and is an Exceptional Affinity.

As for this guy, I didn't bother with the minsal deal because it never occurred to me in a million years that no one else would offer a contract to the 10th highest current-rated QB in the league by my scout. I never thought I'd sign him.

I would be curious to know the results of this test.

I'll do it and try to find the threshold. It'll be a good test. Observation has told us that bonus and year one salary trump everything else pretty heavily. This may help show us by how much. I wouldn't be shocked to find that the year 2 and year 3 salaries are next to meaningless, even.

[Sef0r]

But what is does is take a player out of the FA pool from the get go. If the previous team did not renegotiate that players contract before FA then obviously they couldn't get it done, their problem.

However, looking at my situation, I couldn't really afford to make too many offers so the first thing I had to do was renegotiate with current high salary players to make room to try and go after other free agents. Wade may have attempted to make some changes so he could land his QB back in the next stages of FA, but obviously he can't now.

If by FA8 no one had made an offer, would you still have made that same offer to him? You probably would have, knowing it was only a 1 year deal in essense.

If this was done between FA2-12 I probably would not have a problem with it. Even then, I think these types of deals go around the 3 year deal rule.

I don't want to sound like a nazi here as I am new so forgive me if the way I come across isn't so PC...

[chinaski]

Most of the leagues ive played in dont allow yearly base salary to be more than double from year to year. Prevents backload bloating, such as situations like this.

[Shard77]

Originally Posted by chinaski

Most of the leagues ive played in dont allow yearly base salary to be more than double from year to year. Prevents backload bloating, such as situations like this.

A lot of leagues that have that rule, don't apply it to the first to second year of the deal.

[chinaski]

Originally Posted by Shard77

A lot of leagues that have that rule, don't apply it to the first to second year of the deal.

ah yes, you are correct sir!

[Sef0r]

Ben, you have a 7 year $229 Mil offer to a QB in his 16th season.

Oh well, at least it forces teams who cannot sign a good QB to invest a draft pick into a QB.

To correct my post above...

"If this was done between FA1 stages 5-12 I probably would not have a problem with it. Even then, I think these types of deals go around the 3 year deal rule."

[johnnyshaka]

No big deal...some have said it before...they've grown bored with the league since the initial "fun" (FA frenzy draft) is over and now, my guess, is Ben is just throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks.

Just like the nudge, nudge, wink, wink trades...no rules were broken...time to move on.

[Shard77]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I know I've already said it in this thread, but this bears highlighting, because I doubt that most people realize that this mechanism is in the game now. If they did, all the unnecessary rules against backloading would have gone away all over the place.

Yeah, I'm dealing with it a bit right now. I've got a couple of decent players in the last year of contracts paying $12 mm plus (The previous regime really went hog wild on a couple of these guys). Their PT and performance were mostly so-so last season. I was hoping to renege them for short money, but the basically want the same amount they're making now - just converted into a bonus.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by chinaski

Most of the leagues ive played in dont allow yearly base salary to be more than double from year to year. Prevents backload bloating, such as situations like this.

And I would submit that it's a completely useless rule. What's the problem here? I say it again: I suspect that if anyone had offered the player just about anything else, he would have signed. I'll run the tests later today, or you can test it yourself in the MP environment. But the fact still remains that the player took the only offer that he had. (This doesn't happen in SP, by the way. In SP, they require something close to the asking price. This is unique to the MP environment.)

Originally Posted by Sef0r

But what is does is take a player out of the FA pool from the get go. If the previous team did not renegotiate that players contract before FA then obviously they couldn't get it done, their problem.

Right.

However, looking at my situation, I couldn't really afford to make too many offers so the first thing I had to do was renegotiate with current high salary players to make room to try and go after other free agents. Wade may have attempted to make some changes so he could land his QB back in the next stages of FA, but obviously he can't now.

Renegs are processed before the stage is run. As a result, any monies free up are applied to that stage. Just offer what the player is asking, do the math, and you can know exactly how much you'll have available in that stage.

If by FA8 no one had made an offer, would you still have made that same offer to him? You probably would have, knowing it was only a 1 year deal in essense.

Heck no. I would have offered a three-year minsal deal with minbonus if he was sitting out there in FA8. And if I'd made the only offer in the first stage and he didn't sign, I would have dropped by offer to 3-year minsal. But the case you mention is a near-impossible one anyway. As a general policy, I make an offer to every single player rated above a certain number at the very first chance I get, for three reasons:

a. So that no one else can get a guy at a bargain price. (From what I've gathered, even an all-minsal offer versus a half-his-asking-price offer will usually cause the player to wait a stage or two.)
b. To help induce bidding wars on players I don't need. (I'm always a fan of other teams overspending their cap room. )
c. Just on the off chance that one else offers, so *I* can get a guy at a bargain price. (extremely less likely, but as we saw here, it *can* happen.)

Obviously reasons A and B are the main reasons here. I've never, ever seen C actually happen with a decent player in a league with 32 humans.

If this was done between FA2-12 I probably would not have a problem with it. Even then, I think these types of deals go around the 3 year deal rule.

See the above. Zero chance this guy makes it that far.

I don't want to sound like a nazi here as I am new so forgive me if the way I come across isn't so PC...

Not at all. I think it's a good discussion and helps highlight the way some things work in FOF.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Sef0r

Ben, you have a 7 year $229 Mil offer to a QB in his 16th season.

Yup. And there's actually some real money on that one. If he were to sign with me, I'd take a significant bonus hit. Not saying how much, of course. No reason for people bidding on the guy to know how much to bid.

"If this was done between FA1 stages 5-12 I probably would not have a problem with it. Even then, I think these types of deals go around the 3 year deal rule."

Missed this before I posted. See above.

Originally Posted by Shard77

Yeah, I'm dealing with it a bit right now. I've got a couple of decent players in the last year of contracts paying $12 mm plus (The previous regime really went hog wild on a couple of these guys). Their PT and performance were mostly so-so last season. I was hoping to renege them for short money, but the basically want the same amount they're making now - just converted into a bonus.

Yup. Tha'ts precisely how it works. I think for marginal players it's that simple: if he was gonna make $10M, and the minimum is 1M, his reneg request will be for a $9M bonus and a $1M salary the first year. It seems that for good players, they may want more bonus and/or first year salary, but it appears to be always linked to making at least what their contract called for them to make that year. I don't fully have my hands around it, since I rarely do deals with salaries that escalate very much. I'm not sure when this snuck into FOF, but it makes all the difference in the world on backloaded deals. Once you've offered a salary, they will get that money one way or the other, or you'll have to release them.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

So are you saying it would be better if I'd offered a three-year deal at ALL minsal and locked him up long-term at the cheap rate because no one else bothered to offer him anything?

That's what I'm saying, yes. On the surface it appears the guy MAY have signed because of fake money. You are saying that's not the case, and you may be right. If it turns out he'd sign a complete minsal deal then I think my point about "fake" money and taking advantage of the 3-year deal is lost.

[Sef0r]

Well, all things considered in my eyes it is still a 1 year deal, there is no way you are keeping him after this season.

In saying that, this just pushes the fact that you must be very concious of your cap and players in the last year of their contract must be resigned or lost in FA. Its the way it is and if there is not many against this then we just carry on.

[Ben E Lou]

Ok. I don't have very long, but I'm sitting down to test this out now...

[Ben E Lou]

First test is a simple one. I create an export as Atlanta with a pure 3-year minsal offer to the QB, with no competing offers.

His request is:

B: $25.4M
Y1: $2.1M
Y2: $11.28M
Y3: $13.38M
Y4: $15.49M

I offer:

B: $30K
Y1: $940K
Y2: $940K
Y3: $940K

[Ben E Lou]

This is interesting. Trying it out on several players. Apparently there is some percentage of the original total that's required, or he'll reject the offer upon importing (before ever processing). That number seems to vary from player to player. However, that number is still very, very low in comparison to the original offer. He accepted the following in Week 2 every single time I offered it:

B: 30K
1: 940K
2: 3.0M
3: 3.0M

So I can definitely say that it wasn't the huge year 2 and 3 that caused him to sign. But it can also be said that he wouldn't have signed the minsal offer either. Interestingly enough, though, some of the other starting-quality players *will* sign for 3-year minsal. As best as I can tell, it's tied to what they wanted. More detail in the next post as to which ones signed and which ones didn't.

[Shard77]

Interesting stuff....this is part of the reason why I joined this league.

[TheMeat]

I am completely on board with Ben's logic on this one. I think his reasons for offering this contract do not violate the spirit of the league. I would ask this question: Why is there a 3 yr minimum contract offer rule? My understanding is that it is to prevent teams with a lot of cap room to offer huge 1 yr deals on players just because they can. Yes Ben essentially offered a 1 yr deal but it is the exact opposite of what we are trying to avoid.

And I do absolutely agree that the real issue is that no one else offered the QB anything. Backloading contracts simply does not work in my experience. I suspect we are about to find that out through Ben's quick test but I've checked it before and players value first year money WAY WAY WAY more than they value later salary. To the point where I'd say the $30m in salary for years 2-3 have almost no relevance in the player's decision.

[Ben E Lou]

OK. Here goes. I just offered every single non-kicker on the first page list (the top 25, I think) a minsal contract. Except I offered the QB a little more to see how low he might go.

12 of them rejected the offer upon importing. For 12 of them, it was a viable offer. In addition, I offered the same QB something *very* trivial this time: $90K bonus, $940K/$1.5M/$1.5M. On the first trial, of those 12, five signed the pure minsal deal in Week 2. They were:

RT Shapiro (53/53)
DE roberson (55/55)
OLB Farr (51/51)
DE Willis (52/52)
OLB Wilhelm (79/79)

Then in Week 3 three more signed:
DT Good (52/52)
MLB Johnannson (52/52)
OLB Strickland (56/56)

One more signed in Week 4:
WR Burroughs (67/67)

Two in Week 5
RB Swensen (57/57)
WR Mundy (53/53)

And then finally in Week 6
DT Clark (54/54)

Herndon signed in Week 2, for a grand total of 3 years and $4.03M.

I think from this it's pretty clear that you can get these guys to accept next to nothing if no one else offers. Based on Herndon's behavior, I suspect that if I offered all of these guys some small bonus, year one minsal, and a $1M-$2M salary (or maybe less...I don't feel like teasing out exactly how low you can go there, but clearly it's wayyyyyyyyyyy below asking price) in years 2 and 3 that they'd accept those as well.

[Ben E Lou]

OK. Gonna do a quick one before I have to leave. I'll offer the same contract I offered him as ATlanta, then load as another team and offer him a 120K bonus, minsal, minsal, minsal. I gotta know.

[Ben E Lou]

OK. The 120K/minsal offer got rejected, but then I fashioned this one:

B: $150K
1: $940K
2: $2.0M
3: $2.0M

versus.

30k bonus

year 1: 940k
year 2: 30mil
year 3: 30mil


And you guessed it, sports fans. The first time out, he signed contract #1 over contract #2.

In week 2.

And I wanted to know the same thing I'm sure you want to know. Was that just a dice roll, or is that consistent behavior???

So this time I ran the import, and saved it right after importing but before running the stage.

Trial 1: Contract 1, week 2
Trial 2: Contract 1, week 5
Trial 3: Contract 1, Week 7
Trial 4: contract 1, Week 2
Trial 5: Contract 1, Week 5
Trial 6: Contract 1, Week 2
Trial 7: Contract 1, Week 6
Trial 8: Contract 1, Week 7
Trial 9: Contract 1, Week 4
Trial 10: Contract 1, Week 3

It is practically (if not completely) ignoring future years, guys. As has been said, it is ALL about the bonus and year 1 salary, even when years 2 and 3 are $60M combined versus $4M combined, and the difference in the bonu is only $120K.

[TheMeat]

Thanks for taking the time Ben, this confirms (I would think) that we need no rules against backloading as it just doesn't work.

[wade moore]

Thanks for going through this ben.

The contract you offered still bugs me a bit, but certainly not as much as it did orginally with all of these facts.

[Subby]

I don't have an issue with it, although if you want to REALLY make things interesting, don't allow releases until a player's final contract year.

[Julio Riddols]

I think I now agree a little more with the logic behind this.

[zbuckley]

Originally Posted by Subby

I don't have an issue with it, although if you want to REALLY make things interesting, don't allow releases until a player's final contract year.

expect for a career ending injury.

[Sef0r]

Just remove the 3 year deal rule because all things considered, that offer breaks that rule. He looses nothing in years 2 and 3.

A proper offer would mean he keeps the player for another 2 years costing his salary cap about 1 mil and 2 mil, which is pretty big given that the salary cap only goes up by 1 mil each year. It would make releasing that player a little more difficult a decision to make. Ben would probably rethink signing 4 QBs in the off-season knowing all 5 may still be on the roster taking up even more cap space in season 2.

This offer means he releases the player next season with a 10k penalty for that season and 10k for the season after.

[TheMeat]

As I mentioned earlier, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, the 3 year contract rule is to prevent som eone from offering a huge 1 year deal on a free agent because they have the cap space.

Example - If MIA had stepped in with their massive cap room and offered the top 3-5 free agents 25mil 1 yr deals just to keep them off the market.

So the 3 year rule is still necessary IMO to avoid that situation, Ben's deal did not violate the spirit of that rule. To reinforce what I believe to be the main point here... NO ONE else offered the qb ANY deal and that is why Ben's offer went through, not because he used some flaw in game logic to exploit us and not because he used some superficial advantage to deprive us of any enjoyment of the game. I feel that what he did was use a slight bit of cunning, a very slight bit, and it worked to his advantage against some owners who may have desired this qb but were sleeping at wheel and I feel that is completely within the spirit of the game. If we make rules to prohibit owners from taking advantage of the laziness of other owners then this becomes less a game of skill and more a game of "lets be nice to each other". This needs to be competitive or it's not fun.

Lesson for inexperienced owners: If you want a player at least offer what you would be willing to pay him, do not assume that some other team will pay him huge money and you won't get him. That may very well happen but at least offer. Not to mention the other reasons Ben brought up about trying to make other teams overpay. Kudos to Ben.

[Ben E Lou]

I had a thought overnight that I'm going to try out. It appears that the number that the player would take is not a percentage of the request. It's simply wayyyy too low to be that. I suspect that it's a bit more hard-coded than that: if request > x then you must offer at least y. Given how little y was, I'm actually wondering if y is just "something greater than minsal in years 2 and 3 and minbonus in year 1." I'm going to try the 90K bonus and then 940/950/950.