Salary Cap problem

[BrnwsBucksFanNC]

Good luck with the Browns. The trainer is crap and the cap isnt that good...besides your draft is messed up because of the trade to draft the "awesome" bench-warming Brady Quinn.

Winslow will stay pretty much hurt the first year and start complaining when you cant play him and Edwards will drop almost every pass thrown to him. Shaun Rogers will be hurt alot as well.

But if you make it through the first year and work the draft the potential is there for a great team. You are lucky with Chudzinski...he turns into a great offensive coordinator.

[browns_nation]

as the above says, good luck with the browns. I too have a browns franchise and it took me 3 years to turn them into a contender. I released winslow, edwards, jamal lewis and rogers from the main menu before starting my franchise just so I wouldnt take the cap hit with these players and have the extra money to spend on free agents so since you're so early in your franchise maybe this is a way to work around your cap problems. The ironic thing is that starting out, cleveland has a ton of cap room so you have very flexible options.

I know your problem currently is money but I just wanted to share some advice with you on how I worked around the lack of talent. I added peyton hillis, mike bell, ben watson and demetrius williams to fill the void of letting the other guys go. bell, watson and williams become studs once their play knowledge gets over 50% and Ahtya Rubin under the "run stopper DT" philosophy becomes a monster, Rogers who? Also, Im curious what schemes you're running and what your philosophies are.

Im by no means telling you how to run your team but I figured I'd give my 2 cents since these problems are familiar.. let me know how it goes

[Skarecrow]

another thing worth mentioning about the GM cutting players:

The OVL rating for a player is based on production and scouting. for players who've been on your team for awhile, it's usually pretty accurate. for players you've just drafted, or your GM invited to training camp, it's horribly inaccurate. I've had players go from OVL ratings in the mid 40s to the high 60s or even low 70s after one or two games as my coaches got to know them better. if you drafted a player that you "know" has a potential of something like 92, but didn't do much in college he may come to your training camp with an abysmal overall rating.

The GM will -happily- cut those players purely based on their current rating.

What I will normally do, is keep a spreadsheet of every player on my active roster with their current ovl and their pot. I'll make notation of any player with a pot under 75 as possible fodder to be cut. I'll also note that if I've got something like three FS with potentials in the upper 80s, but two of them have current ratings in the mid 80s and one has a rating in the low 70s, there's not much reason to keep that 3rd guy.

during the pre-season I won't update that list since it'll get so bloated with training camp invitees, but I will -immediately- cut any new bodies from the roster with a potential under 75 as soon as their potential is discovered. it saves you a lot of time and stress when you go into "cut day" with a list of 8 or 9 people that it's safe to cut.

[jc1958us]

I don't pay attention to anything the GM has to say. Most of them are in it for themselves. I've had GM's go behind my back and release players that were still under a bonus layden contract.

[UndeniableSkillz9]

had got fired plenty of times i had to give up my lions chise.

now i can't even maintain a chise because i always somehow end up salary cap trouble.

I want to keep playing but i'm have to restart and sim all the way to the 4th season again.

I keep debating on should if i should restart it. I got to coach the browns and added a few stars to it. however my salary cap is ****ed up for next season so they go end up firing me. If i do stay i won't have no money to sign anybody for a year.

[UndeniableSkillz9]

really wish i could get back with my lions but they seem to be doing good.

in desperate need of a football fix. can't play madden its been months. i refuse to put it in the drive.

Ncaa been a while just i don't to get into the habbit of recruiting and etc.. than ncaa 12 comes out. and have to start over.

[damonb10]

I guess I don't ever really have salary cap problems. You have to be smart with the money and excercise restraint during free-agency and when resigning your own players. Also, some teams to start with are difficult and it takes a lot of time and patience to allow that to clean up so you can build a winner.

[KalimbeNaire]

A couple of things:

About why you got fired: It wasn't the salary cap, it was the cap penalties you occurred when you cut guys. My general rule of thumb is that I try not to cut anyone that has a high salary bonus, or a very long and super expensive contract. Unfortunately you just have to ride some of those things out, or maybe keep them a couple of years and then cut them or trade them when the penalty won't be so great.

When you start to cut too many players, the owner will usually come around and warn you that if you make to many more cuts that involve cap penalties, he will fire you...so that is usually a good clue.

The injuries: You have to check out players' health of their body parts and their durability ratings. I am in year two of a Jets franchise and poor Shaun Ellis has an overall health of 48! He will be ruled out of practices automatically due to my philosophy (players do not practice with low health...and you can set that up in your team philosophy area) but he can still play in games. Of course I risk him getting injured. I also have Jermichael Finley who seems to play 1-2 games, then miss a week or two, come back for a game, get hurt during the game, miss a week or two...for two straight seasons now.

Having a good trainer definitely will help keep your guys healthier and coming back from injuries sooner, but you have to look for more durable players.