More flexibility with contracts

[ParaAut]

I really feel EA needs to do something with roster management and give us some flexibility with contracts.

First, I really think there are some positives in this year's Madden. I like that you normally retain your most important players during the season and most of the players after the season (and most the the times not able to retain all of them easily). I also like the kind of bidding in free agency where you see your contract offer evaluated - and the best players are gone by week 1. So there are some positives things, definitely.

But, I am really missing some flexibility with contracts. For example:
- Adjust guaranteed salary (at least an increase should be accepted, why would a player decline more guaranteed money???)
- Guaranteed money adjustable per year (e.g. 3 years with guaranteed money, after that release without cap penalties)
- Choose contract front-loaded/evenly distributed/back-loaded (not automatically back-loaded!

There are definitely many more improvements, but these would be the most important and obvious ones.

I really feel handicapped when I have to hand every star player a backloaded contract and I know I will be in cap hell 4-5 years from now just because I can't give them the money now when I have it.

[T4VERTS]

This is one of my biggest issues with the CFM side of the game. If we are really trying to manage a team over multiple seasons you need more control over the cap. I'd like to see the additions of contract restructuring (Player can reject it or accept it). I'd also like to see more creativity in negotiating the contracts as you pointed out. Additionally the ability to tender restricted free agents would be nice, and would be a lot of fun in a CFM. Also once we tag a player we can't continue to negotiate for a long term deal throughout FA, that should be changed to match the schedule used in NFL i.e. in game we should be able to negotiate up through FA.

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by ParaAut

I really feel EA needs to do something with roster management and give us some flexibility with contracts. First, I really think there are some positives in this year's Madden. I like that you normally retain your most important players during the season and most of the players after the season (and most the the times not able to retain all of them easily). I also like the kind of bidding in free agency where you see your contract offer evaluated - and the best players are gone by week 1. So there are some positives things, definitely. But, I am really missing some flexibility with contracts. For example: - Adjust guaranteed salary (at least an increase should be accepted, why would a player decline more guaranteed money???) - Guaranteed money adjustable per year (e.g. 3 years with guaranteed money, after that release without cap penalties) - Choose contract front-loaded/evenly distributed/back-loaded (not automatically back-loaded! There are definitely many more improvements, but these would be the most important and obvious ones. I really feel handicapped when I have to hand every star player a backloaded contract and I know I will be in cap hell 4-5 years from now just because I can't give them the money now when I have it.

Great post and I agree. I would love more flexibility and cap management options. Hopefully they can add those features into CFM.

On the flip side I think sometimes you have to give that back loaded contract and live with it to get certain hot Free Agents or in particular a hot QB free agent (Brock Osweiller anyone?) and live with those consequences.

But overall yes....would love more options for the front office side of things.

[Shosum13]

Quote: Originally Posted by ParaAut

I really feel EA needs to do something with roster management and give us some flexibility with contracts. First, I really think there are some positives in this year's Madden. I like that you normally retain your most important players during the season and most of the players after the season (and most the the times not able to retain all of them easily). I also like the kind of bidding in free agency where you see your contract offer evaluated - and the best players are gone by week 1. So there are some positives things, definitely. But, I am really missing some flexibility with contracts. For example: - Adjust guaranteed salary (at least an increase should be accepted, why would a player decline more guaranteed money???) - Guaranteed money adjustable per year (e.g. 3 years with guaranteed money, after that release without cap penalties) - Choose contract front-loaded/evenly distributed/back-loaded (not automatically back-loaded! There are definitely many more improvements, but these would be the most important and obvious ones. I really feel handicapped when I have to hand every star player a backloaded contract and I know I will be in cap hell 4-5 years from now just because I can't give them the money now when I have it.

Agreed, long term management of a team is tough, most importantly we need to be able to choose how the contract money is distributed instead of it just being back loaded, and they need to finally add the option to try and restructure contracts. It would add a lot of depth and realism, I always get disappointed when I play the league mode in the NBA 2K series, because the NBA isn't my favorite of the major sports and I just wish that kind of depth in a career or GM mode would be added in to the EA sports titles, especially Madden because football is my absolute favorite sport.

[CM Hooe]

Honestly I'm already reasonably happy with what exists now from a contract perspective, and I'd be very happy with what exists now if only a "restructure contract" option is added.

What I want this option to do is allow me to convert a player's current-year base salary to a signing bonus, that bonus which is then distributed over the remaining years of the contract. This is a very common cap management tactic in today's NFL; the Cowboys use it all the time, for example.

This one change adds more dynamics to cap management in a very easy-to-digest manner. It would pretty easily fit into the Big Decisions paradigm that Franchise mode is working with; do you want to restructure a player's contract or no? It'd also be limited to second-contract players (slotted rookie contracts can't be renegotiated by NFL rules until after three years of league service), so the number of contract restructure requests wouldn't be overwhelming.

An example of this in action - you could sign Tony Romo to a 7-year $105 million contract with a $70 million bonus to keep him around, then keep pushing off that base salary every year so you can sign free agents and stay competitive; bringing in a top free-agent prospect in Brandon Carr, re-sign DeMarcus Ware, etc. etc. However, what do you do once Romo starts getting hurt repeatedly and suddenly you have a giant albatross of a contract on your cap which you can't cut or trade away? You suddenly have some hard roster decisions on your hands.

The other pieces of this necessary to make it work - to keep it from being easy to get out of bad contracts, which is the case at the moment - are compensatory draft picks and revised trade logic to account for contracts and compensatory picks, but both of those are outside of the scope of this topic.

[SilverBullet19]

My biggest gripe is you don't control the distribution. IE a 4 year $20m contract, simple math says $5m a year. In reality, it makes it:
1st yr: $4m
2nd yr: $5m
3rd yr: $6m
4th yr: $6m

or something like that. It makes it harder to manage the cap when you don't know his true salary till after the contract. I'd like that to control each yr's salary. If its a 4 year deal, let me edit the pay for each year individually to equal $20m.

I like that there's a signing bonus, but treat it like a real one instead of guaranteed money. Make 3 parts:
-signing bonus
-salary (editable per yr)
-guaranteed money

That would be more true to form. I wouldn't want to get much more intricate, because it starts becoming more confusing with the cap #'s over the years. That's especially true for casual gamers, or guys who aren't as good financially.

[BTW]

On top of this, would be great if we could see our current total payroll numbers for future seasons. MLB The Show does this and it is fantastic, and really allows you to plan for and anticipate the future of your team's finances without having to break out a calculator and do it yourself. Hopefully next year this will be a major focus for the dev team.

B

[ajra21]

Quote: Originally Posted by ParaAut

I really feel EA needs to do something with roster management and give us some flexibility with contracts. First, I really think there are some positives in this year's Madden. I like that you normally retain your most important players during the season and most of the players after the season (and most the the times not able to retain all of them easily). I also like the kind of bidding in free agency where you see your contract offer evaluated - and the best players are gone by week 1. So there are some positives things, definitely. But, I am really missing some flexibility with contracts. For example: - Adjust guaranteed salary (at least an increase should be accepted, why would a player decline more guaranteed money???) - Guaranteed money adjustable per year (e.g. 3 years with guaranteed money, after that release without cap penalties) - Choose contract front-loaded/evenly distributed/back-loaded (not automatically back-loaded! There are definitely many more improvements, but these would be the most important and obvious ones. I really feel handicapped when I have to hand every star player a backloaded contract and I know I will be in cap hell 4-5 years from now just because I can't give them the money now when I have it.

while i agree with your overall point, your last paragraph reflects how accurate madden can be to the real NFL. nearly all big signing will causes issues down the road.