Help w/ Franchise Salary Cap

[FlyEaglesFly3]

Ok I'm the Eagles, How do I balance out the Salary so I can have good players, while still getting 1st round picks and an OK free agent? It always seems that I can't make a trade or sign someone or sign a draft pick because I get negative in salary cap.

[Old School SD Fan]

When you cut someone there is a cap penalty, and Madden tells you what it is.

When you trade someone, if they have unpaid or pro-rated bonus money due, there is a penalty. HOWEVER, due to a bug, Madden does NOT warn you or post the $ amount, but you can bet it shows up next season as a cap penalty.

Same is true if you re-sign a player on your roster to a longer contract, if there's bonus money due on the old contract, bam, no warning or $ amount disclosed, but you get hit with a penalty next season for the balance of the old bonus.

But if you get in cap trouble, the first thing to do is renegotiate big contracts for players that will produce a big savings. Generally, look at the guys with only one year left on their deals as the cap hit will be less, then if needed hit the guys with 2 years left.

You may need to dump salary through cuts or trades to get under the cap, just understand you'll get hit on the cap next year for guys you dump or trade. There's also the trick of signing guys with zero bonus money so you can trade or cut them without cap penalties.

[football5680]

what i do to stay under the cap is you have to stay young and build through the draft. when i know i have a great rookie in the 4th or 5th round or later, i sign him to a 7 year contract and that makes it so he will be like a 90 ovr but he is still being paid like 300k. also when your players get older like in there 30's and they are not an offenseive lineman, start to replace them with younger players because the older players want the big contracts, younger players you draft you can sign for cheaper.

[takeitez]

I changed my best WR position to K, released him, signed him long term for a few bucks during free agency, and finally reassigned him to his original position.

[maltliquor84]

Stay young and don't overpay for average players, and don't go out out and get a star player if you really don't need him. I always have a fairly cheap team, it's seldom I have less than 20 mil in cap space every year.

[Valdarez]

Did they fix the bug from Madden 10 where the penalty always showed $0 penalty? Did they provide any way to view your penalty over a 5 to period?

[Old School SD Fan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Valdarez

Did they fix the bug from Madden 10 where the penalty always showed $0 penalty? Did they provide any way to view your penalty over a 5 to period?

No, it shows the penalty if you try to CUT a player but not if you try to TRADE one. You're never sure of the trade hit.

[Nunyerbiz]

Another thing that I always do, is that when you have the cap space, try to use as much of it as possible to avoid paying signing bonuses. Don't go overboard and leave yourself nothing for injury pickups... but in general I try my darndest to never, ever pay signing bonuses to free agents. Obviously, this doesn't work with big name free agents... But I try to never pay a dime of bonus to anybody that you are signing as a depth guy or a stopgap starter.

For example, I signed Lance Moore to play the slot WR for my Lions franchise. He is in his late 20s, so I didn't want to be bound by a long term contract that was impossible to dump. I also wanted flexibility in case I drafted a cheap and capable replacement. So, I signed him to a five year deal with no signing bonus. In the first year, this cost me about $2m more against the cap then the standard backloaded signing bonus deal would have... But... 1) I can cut / trade him whenever I want without penalty and 2) His salary never goes up. His cap number in year 1 is the same as it will be in year 5. Over time, the cap raises each year... so if you have a bunch of depth guys that keep the same salary year after year, you actually get cap relief as time progresses. Being able to cut middle-of-the-road guys to allow cheap draft replacements to take over has a big boost to the overall cap... but not if you are paying penalties.

Also, whenever you feel you have the cap space to allow it... don't be afraid of penalties. If you can afford to take a hit to get out from under a bad contract, then go for it. I recently traded Nate Burleson for a 4th or 5th round pick. In two seasons he missed 18 games due to injury and had four undesirable years left on his deal. I had two guys falling off my payroll that totaled about $12m in cap space. These two guys already had rookie replacements on the roster that would be starting the following year... so, I used part of that $12m in money falling off the books to contain the $8m penalty I took for trading Burleson. This did make me less of a buyer in the free agent market, but the long term benefits of getting out of that contract will more than make up for it down the road. A lot of the problems that I ran into the last time I played Madden was having backloaded deals come due on players that were no longer worth the money... so I try to get rid of those deals if I can eat the penalty early rather than later. Burleson would have been a 34 year old WR making close to $10m a year or something insane... and I wanted none of that.

(side note: Lance Moore is an awesome slot reciever. His speed is lower 80s, but his catching and catch-in-traffic are high 80s and his route running is over 90. He almost never drops anything regardless of how hard he gets drilled by LBs over the middle. Due to his great route running, he will almost always get a step of seperation out of his first cut. There are very few rosters that would not benefit from having him. Even if he's your 5th WR, snap him up if he is available. On 3rd and 7, sub him in on an eight yard route and he'll make the play. One of those mid-70s OVR gems that can make a big impact in a specialized role.)