Overhaulin': Madden Financial System

[josefrees]

I don't see what's wrong with those contracts--assuming the league lasts. Just means in a few years there is going to be choices made.

And yes madden has always been pretty terrible with contracts.

[PaulChildres]

I believe all players should be ASKING for 10-15% more then what they ask for. Also, the SALARY CAP should be adjustable. RIght now in year 2016 it is 140m and I was able to overpay alot of my players (RGIII, Alfred Morris, Garcon, D. Heyward Bey, Orakpo, Kerrigan, Trent Williams, Eric Berry) and I still have $30m in cap space, as well as 32 million the next year? A team shouldn't be allowed to do that.

[Trick13]

Quote: Originally Posted by Robrain

You can SORT OF restructure a player's contract, but it's a bit weird as to how. It's more of a workaround than an intentional feature. Basically, you cut the player and then immediately resign them as a free agent. That will terminate their old contract and then allow you to resign them to a long contract at the end of the season. So, if you acquire a player with 2-3 years remaining on their contract, say a 76 OVR FS in this example. Let's say his original contract was a 4-year rookie deal. Since you acquired him via trade, any guaranteed money that was owed to him from his draft contract is being paid by the team you got him from. Because of that, you have no guaranteed money tied up in this player. Let's say you acquire him during his sophomore season. So, if he was drafted in 2013, you acquire him during the 2014 season, and you'll also have him under contract (based on his rookie deal) for 2015 and 2016. In 2017 he'll become a free agent. You can normally renegotiate an extension (up to 6 years) with him during the 2016 season, the final season of his deal. Let's say he has phenomenal physical stats: speed, acceleration, etc. but he's one if those players with low "skills" like AWR, PRC, ZCV, etc. While he's still a 76 OVR, you can terminate his contract, then immediately resign him from the Free Agent Pool. This will place him on a one year contract (priced, from what I can tell, based on his OVR, his time accrued in the NFL, and his production - which if you haven't used him much should be almost zero). Now you are free to resign him to a new 6-year deal at the end of the season (which will lock him up for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, making him a free agent in 2021), or you can let him reach free agency (since you should be able to easily outbid teams for a 78 OVR player) and sign him to a 7-year deal that will lock him up through 2021 (he'll become a free agent in 2022). Without being able to renegotiate players contracts via an official method, I used this workaround on occassion to prevent cap headaches down the line. I do have other players that I've extended in the same manner to gargantuan contracts (Dontari Poe comes to mind, since he's a centerpiece of my defense), along with a boatload of guaranteed money, so it ends up balancing itself out.

This garbage right here is why EA needs a "waiver wire", just like the real NFL.
I am not sure exactly how the actual NFL waiver rules work, but Madden should have a system where a team cuts a player, anytime outside the resign/FA period, then that player should go to "waivers" - meaning any team can put in a "claim" for that player - the lowest finishing team from the previous year that claims him should then be awarded that player at the contract number he was at in that year. CPU teams should be equipped with programming that claims players if they represent an upgrade and they would be able to cut a player if awarded a player on waiver claim...


That move that you just illustrated would get you banned from any respectable league.


I understand that contracts are a point of supreme failure by EA, but because it is coupled with EA's failures concerning the salary cap this sort of move just should not be tolerated...


That being said, if you are doing that in your solo franchise - no harm no foul...

[Robrain]

As was already mentioned, there's no other way to renegotiate contracts, which is a CRUCIAL part of salary cap management. So I'll use whatever methods are at my disposal to get done what should have been a standard feature.

That said, I do this primarily in my solo leagues, and a few online leagues with a friend. I told him how to do this as well, so that he can use it to manage his own team's salary cap.

Another important note: for any players that you didn't pay any bonus money (otherwise it would result in the obvious cap penalty, which is what we're trying to avoid here), you can cut them and resign them to POTENTIALLY lower their cap number for the current season.

Obviously, for a player you're going to keep around long term, who you signed to a 6 or 7 year deal, it makes no sense to cut them when they have 4 years remaining on their contract, just to save some cap space for the current year. Because you'd then need to resign them again as soon as the current season ended, and that would be a pointless headache.

But for example, in year 3 or 4 of my current franchise, I acquired DE Calais Campbell (29 years old during this season in the franchise) from the Cardinals. I think it cost me like an 88 OVR RG and a 92 OVR FS, along with a 1st Round Pick. He's a 92 or 93 DE.

One of the reasons the Cardinals were willing to trade him was his cap number. They had signed him to a long term contract, and this season he was in the final year of that contract. Because contract numbers are backloaded, his cap number during the final (current) year of his mega contract was over $12 Million.

Since I acquired him in the final year of his contract, he was essentially already playing out a 1-year deal for me.

I was only a few million under cap after acquiring him, when I crunched the numbers and realized that I could also acquire a 30-year old LT Jared Veldheer from the Oakland Raiders, in exchange for two players I was already going to need to trade away plus another first rounder.

But I only had $2-3 million in cap space, and Veldheer's current year cap number was just under $6 million (he had 2 years remaining on his deal). And there was no one else I could cut because I have large amounts of bonus money tied up in most of my other players.

Several of my current players (like Ray Lewis, who is eating $3.5 or $4.5 million of my cap space this current season) almost certainly won't be on my team next season, so I only really needed to free up some cap space for the current year in order to get Veldheer onto my roster.

THIS WOULD BE THE PERFECT SCENARIO WHERE CONTRACT RESTRUCTURING WOULD COME INTO PLAY.

Without that being an option in this year's Madden, I was forced to simulate the concept of contract restructuring by cutting DE Calais Campbell ($12 million in the final year of his contract) and then immediately resigning him from the Free Agent Pool. He was only asking about $5 million for his one-year contract when I signed him from the Free Agent Pool, so I thought of it as him taking a pay cut (which players in the NFL do all the time when they don't have guaranteed money left on their contracts). That maneuver freed up the cap space I needed to acquire Veldheer.

And I couldn't be happier about it.

[Trick13]

Quote: Originally Posted by Robrain

THIS WOULD BE THE PERFECT SCENARIO WHERE CONTRACT RESTRUCTURING WOULD COME INTO PLAY.

I agree that restructures should be in Madden, and I was not trying to be harsh on you, but way too many times in multi-user CFMs that tactic is used to manipulate the cap in ways that are frankly an abuse of a flawed system.


If it is fair game, your solo chise, or one where everyone playing agrees, then obviously go for it.


The point I was trying to make is that EA needs to address this in the future - hopefully with the addition of restructure feature and sign/trade logic.


The reason I object to your methodology is that I have been in CFMs where this was abused regularly. Again, I have no problem with you doing it. I just think that with the ease of cap maneuverability that is inherent in Madden-
- I would prefer that the game, in the future, had both a system for restructuring contracts, a sign/trade system, and a waiver wire so that when players refuse to restructure with a team they can not be cut and resigned as a "cheat/work around"...

[DJazzyJefff23]

Quote: Originally Posted by PaulChildres

I believe all players should be ASKING for 10-15% more then what they ask for. Also, the SALARY CAP should be adjustable. RIght now in year 2016 it is 140m and I was able to overpay alot of my players (RGIII, Alfred Morris, Garcon, D. Heyward Bey, Orakpo, Kerrigan, Trent Williams, Eric Berry) and I still have $30m in cap space, as well as 32 million the next year? A team shouldn't be allowed to do that.

Madden's financial system is garbage, amongst other aspects.

[ForUntoOblivionSoar∞]

Quote: Originally Posted by tdogg097

One thing this offseason is reminding me of is how far away madden contracts are in real life. There is no ability to do what the idiot Cowboys are doing and converting bonuses into base salary to push cap problems into the future. There are no D.Butler contracts 7-48mil, 28 guaranteed but with a team option after the third year. No R.Cooper 5yr/30mil deal. No matter the production I got from my receivers (Pro Bowl, Awards) I could still sign them at less than 2mil per because their rating was below 90. I was always easily below the cap. Hell you can't even renegotiate a contract with a player until the contract is in it's final year. Sorry it's 7am in Korea and that's my morning rant. I hope they will make some changes but I'm not holding out much hope. It's quite sad because the GM piece used to at least be in the same ballpark and now we have this.

I agree so much with this.

[ForUntoOblivionSoar∞]

Quote: Originally Posted by Trick13

I agree that restructures should be in Madden, and I was not trying to be harsh on you, but way too many times in multi-user CFMs that tactic is used to manipulate the cap in ways that are frankly an abuse of a flawed system. If it is fair game, your solo chise, or one where everyone playing agrees, then obviously go for it. The point I was trying to make is that EA needs to address this in the future - hopefully with the addition of restructure feature and sign/trade logic. The reason I object to your methodology is that I have been in CFMs where this was abused regularly. Again, I have no problem with you doing it. I just think that with the ease of cap maneuverability that is inherent in Madden- - I would prefer that the game, in the future, had both a system for restructuring contracts, a sign/trade system, and a waiver wire so that when players refuse to restructure with a team they can not be cut and resigned as a "cheat/work around"...

If everyone is doing it how is it a cheat? I mean, Madden's system is flawed, and this is a clever way to make it more realistic, IMHO.