Do incentives cause a player's Production to rise?

[Mike3207]

Just a question I've been wondering about. I customarily try and avoid incentives like the plague, but I recently gave out a pair of incentives to my ROLB Keith Bulluck. I recently read a thread from Josh where it was suggested you go for incentives over a signing bonus, so as to avoid a problem if you have to cut or trade them. I gave out incentives for 100 tackles and 10 sacks to my ROLB, and he just had a game where he had 14 tackles. So my questions are this? 1. Will you see a rise in a player's Production with incentives? 2. If you do, is it a good idea to include incentives to keep your players at a high level of production?

[Pass_The_Cows]

I don't think that's the case. I typically avoid incentives too and I've never had any issues with lack of production. Usually the only time I will give an incentive is if it's to nab a guy I know wont start 16 games or put up starter caliber numbers.

[cutter73]

Nope. Incentives have no effect on production. It's just part of the negoiating
process. The reason some people hand out incentives is because you can do things to save money. If a player has an incentive for starting every game, you can just put him at second string on the depth chart and the bring him in for pretty much the whole game off the bench. Therefore, you never actually have to pay the incentive.

As far as cuts or trades, incentives still count against your cap the same way a signing bonus does. They may work out to be a bit cheaper, I'm not really sure. I don't usually give them out if I can help it.

[goalieump413]

Incentives are a double-edged sword. They help in contract negotiations when trying to land a guy who you don't want to pay an excessive amount to in a signing bonus. But they also hinder you in that if a player with an incentive is benched so he won't reach his target, his approval rating can decline.

It's usually not a major problem, because one or two players that have reductions in approval rating won't hurt you too much. Just make sure you don't forget to start the guy the next game.

[TheUpperLegion]

I only use incentives as bait in the contract negotiation process. I avoid them if I can.