Offseason issues

[macbranson]

I had a rough time this offseason trying to re -sign my players. It seems that no one wants to re-sign with my team despite having three consecutively good seasons where I lost a Super Bowl, won a Super Bowl and lost in the NFC Championship game. I even offered all the players slightly more than they were asking for, but still no one wanted to re-sign. The only starter who re-signed was my TE Greg Olsen who just turned 30. Both my starting corners, my Pro Bowl guard, even my second string linebackers and running backs didn't re-sign. I've never had such a rough time trying to retain my players before this season.

Then, for the first time, I actually had a bunch of money ($30 million) for free agency and I was only able to sign one player out of eight who I made offers to. Once again, I offered more than they wanted and even purchased the Free Agent packages, but very little success. It's like players are trying to avoid my team like the plague.

Another problem I have is being unable to restructure contracts. DE Charles Johnson was putting $17 million against my cap and I wanted to restructure his contract so I could keep him, but there's no way to do that. I had to trade him away. They need to add an option to restructure contracts .

[Robrain]

How much guaranteed money were you offering them?

[macbranson]

I was offering them around 25-30% signing bonus for the good players. The backups I was offering maybe 10%. Same thing is been doing the last two seasons, but with much better success.

[Robrain]

Basically, if you're confident that you want said player to be on your team for the long haul, and you're not going to trade them down the line, the easiest way when you have a boatload of cap space is to set their base pay to something like 800k or $1M, and then pay their entire salary as bonus money.

For 90+ OVR players, this seems to be essential to guaranteeing that you keep them around.

Also, if they're ~30+ and want 1-year deals, it seems almost guaranteed failure sometimes to offer them long-term (6-7 year) contracts.

Example, Ray Lewis wanted to resign with my team, he wanted a 1-year $5 Million per season. I think I resigned him to a 1-year $3.5 Million contract. Either $800k or $1M as base pay, and about $2.5 Million as bonus money.

If you offer them a lot of bonus money, their overall monetary desire usually comes down. And they almost always want to resign with you.

Going into my 4th season I have something like $275 million in funds to blow, so this really isn't a problem the further you get into your franchise, if you know what you're doing as far as ticket sales, concessions, and merchandising.

I typically only offer bonus money in 1-year contracts (guys like Ray Lewis and Jerome Harrison, who are old, and I know I'm going to keep for that season, and if I want them around the season after that, I'll resign them again to another 1-year contract loaded with guaranteed money), or 7-year contracts (guys that I want to be on my team long-term).

The only time I offer contracts of other lengths are guys I'm intending to develop as my backups and then trade down the line. So I don't include any bonus money in their contracts, even if that means I have to overpay them a little (and since all the contracts are back-loaded, I won't have to worry about actually paying them that money, the team I trade them to will have to in a few years).


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Also, it's been noted on these forums that players asking prices seem to be bugged. There seem to be two different asking prices, the one displayed when you go to resign them ("Display asking price"), and a hidden one that represents their true value ("Hidden asking price").

The "Hidden asking price" is the one that determines whether a player resigns with you or not. Basically, when a player is in the final year of their contract, at the start of the season the hidden asking price and the display asking price will be identical.

It's at this point the bug occurs. The Display asking price is now locked in.

You might, over the course of the final year of your player's contract, increase their OVR from a 68 to an 80. However, the Display asking price at the end of the season will still be based on the player's old OVR at the start of the season, and claim that he wants a very low amount of money.

However, of course, he refuses to resign when you offer him exactly what he asked for.

This is because the player's true resigning value is based on the "Hidden" asking price, which increased to match his development over the course of that season (as would be expected when a player has a phenomenal season in the final year of his contract, proving that he deserves to be paid).

So, especially if you used that player a lot (his "Production" stat will likely have gone up) during the final year of his contract and upgraded his stats, you should always assume that the "Display asking price" is incorrect and you need to drastically overpay it if you want to retain that player.

Free Agency is a little easier, because I believe the asking prices are pretty accurate during that period.

However, what you might not take into account is that some teams:

A) Really need help at a certain position, and are willing to overpay to fill that hole in their roster.
B) A player may better fit another team's scheme, so they're willing to overpay that player to get them signed.

That's why in Free Agency, if you really want a player long-term, bonus money is the key. You need to not only pay them more than any other team will, but also more guaranteed bonus money.

If they want a 4-year contract and you try to sign them to a 7-year contract, you're going to need to pile additional bonus money on top of what you would have offered them on a 4-year deal. Say instead of 2.5 million in bonus money per season over 4 years, offer them 3.5-4 million in bonus money per season if you want them to sign with you for 7 years.