SimNFL Feedback Thread

[Sarge]

Starting this for @Piercewise1, @alexfall862 and other participants of the simNFL.

Not everything needs to pile into the interface and Newsim feedback thread. Interface feedback is for specifically the interface's functionality.  Newsim feedback is for the engine and its development.

Post any simNFL Feedback here.

[Piercewise1]

Thanks @Sarge. Commenting so I'll get notifications whenever anything is posted here 

[Spoof]

Some thoughts:

 

1. Private Scouting limited

5 Private Scouting sessions only seems a bit limited. Maybe some sort of combination of the info spent in the Scouting phase can be combined with this where you choose to dedicate more resources to background checks etc there?

 

Draft Day Sports model one to look at for that where you spend some points on scouting ability and then more points are added on if you want an interview/background check 

 

 

2. Progression baked into the player card. Maybe even if it's just the previous years OVR or a +/- number somewhere. Just to give more visual feedback on the success of someone's growth.

 

 

3. Franchise Tag - I don't think we have this in place yet.

 

 

[Bundy]

I think that rather than implementing a new rule (at least on its own) in FA that requires "some sort of salary in each year" to combat the following scenario:

TEAM A signs PLAYER to a contract with only guaranteed money, then trades him, and TEAM B now essentially pays him $0

...we should institute IRL cap rules related to dead money, and the June 1st rule that the IRL NFL has. The IRL dead money rules require the team that signed the contract with the player, to pay the player the GTD money they signed across ALL years of the contract, and the new team only takes on the salary of each remaining year. The June 1 rule can be summed up as follows:

"June 1
A very important date in the NFL calendar when it comes to dealing with dead money is June 1. If a player is cut or traded after June 1, the remaining dead money can be spread over two seasons instead of one as long as that player‘s contract was set to go this distance or beyond. If the player has multiple years left on their contract, only their prorated bonus for that season will count in the first year and all the remaining prorated bonuses added together would count for the next year. For example, if a player had three years left on their contract with $2 million in prorated bonus each season, they would count $2 million for the upcoming season in dead money and $4 million the following season in dead money if they were released after June 1.

One example of this comes from Stephon Tuitt’s retirement last year which occurred on June 1. By waiting until this date, the remaining dead money for Tuitt was able to be spread out across the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

Using the earlier example of Anthony McFarland, this is why he still has a dead money hit with the Steelers for 2023. Because he was released at the end of August before being signed to the practice squad, his dead money hit was spread out over 2022 in 2023. This is why he still has a $180k dead money hit for the season."

 

This could go hand in hand with this new "salary to FAs" rule, could replace it somehow, etc. Would just feel more formal to go/include this route which seems more combative to the potential issue of teams paying $0. 

We could make "June 1" a specified date, the start of the draft, etc. This could also open up things like "contract restructures" (converting non-GTD money into GTD money spread out over the remaining years of the deal, lowering the cap hit in the immediate season), 

[alexfall862]

I've posted about this quite a bit but just putting it in the feedback thread for posterity. 

Contracts having accelerating bonuses when moved or cut creates a healthy environment for contract offers and provides needed relevance for the balance between salary and bonus on contracts. 

If bonuses are moveable with contracts, it makes nearly no functional difference whether a contract is salary or bonus - once a league year progresses. Because the way things are calculated now, the bonus inside of a league year is a net neutral once moved (bonus goes off the books, but equivalent amount is turned into dead cap), so it effectively makes bonuses an irrelevant part of intra-season player movement.

This allows teams that are otherwise overcommitted to players on gtd deals to make all kinds of player movements, where the natural irl NFL lifecycle is that having a high percentage of gtd deals also constrains the ability to move players in an outgoing fashion or offer gtd contracts in the future do to potential over-the-cap consequences. 

Making guaranteed money behave like IRL also makes more sense when you consider what it represents and why the NFL does what they do. It's the money paid upfront as 'bonus' to the player. The rules exist to prevent a team from signing players for only cash and then using the small year to year impact of the contract salary itself to convert a middling player into an attractive trade asset. Owners worked together irl to make this rule that prevents that shenanigan because they have a vested interest in avoiding bonuses in contracts as opposed to paying salary year to year.

[alexfall862]

On 12/20/2023 at 2:21 AM, Spoof said:

Some thoughts:

 

1. Private Scouting limited

5 Private Scouting sessions only seems a bit limited. Maybe some sort of combination of the info spent in the Scouting phase can be combined with this where you choose to dedicate more resources to background checks etc there?

 

Draft Day Sports model one to look at for that where you spend some points on scouting ability and then more points are added on if you want an interview/background check 

 

 

2. Progression baked into the player card. Maybe even if it's just the previous years OVR or a +/- number somewhere. Just to give more visual feedback on the success of someone's growth.

 

 

3. Franchise Tag - I don't think we have this in place yet.

 

 

I absolutely despise DDS and their half-thought out mechanics, but looking at other games/systems is a good idea. Another out to check out that's close to IRL is the Front Office Football series

[Jieret]

With the furor over the "Max amount of tradable dead cap allowed" rule, can we implement an amnesty buyout similar to how the NHL did when their CBA took effect in 2013-2014?

 

Give teams a window before the season starts to have the opportunity to CUT/WAIVE (not trade) a player (or 2) and spread the dead cap over a longer period of time.  I feel this would give teams with untenable cap situations a chance to correct themselves, while not encouraging any last-minute trades that go against the spirit of what these rules are trying to do.

The exact mechanics are always up for debate, but the NHL mechanic works like this (Quoting from Capfriendly):

• 1/3 of the remaining contract value, if the player is younger than 26 at the time of the buyout
• 2/3 of the remaining contract value, if the player is 26 or older at the time of the buyout
   
• As explained above, the buyout is spread out over a period of twice the remaining length of the contract. The team still takes a caphit, and the caphit by year is calculated as follows:
  1. Multiply the remaining salary (excluding signing bonuses) by the buyout amount (as determined by age) to obtain the total buyout cost
  2. Spread the total buyout cost evenly over twice the remaining contract years
  3. Determine the savings by subtracting the annual buyout cost from Step 2. by the players salary (excluding signing bonuses)
  4. Determine the remaining caphit by subtracting the savings from Step 3. by the players Annual Average Salary (AAV) (including signing bonuses)
   
• The above calculation is performed for each year of the buyout, meaning the buyout caphit is not necessarily the same for each year. It is also possible that the buyout caphit can be negative, meaning the team receives a credit.

It doesn't have to be exactly this, but it's a starting point.  And I don't think this solution excludes many other potential answers.

[kwheele]

On 1/23/2024 at 10:43 AM, alexfall862 said:

I've posted about this quite a bit but just putting it in the feedback thread for posterity. 

Contracts having accelerating bonuses when moved or cut creates a healthy environment for contract offers and provides needed relevance for the balance between salary and bonus on contracts. 

If bonuses are moveable with contracts, it makes nearly no functional difference whether a contract is salary or bonus - once a league year progresses. Because the way things are calculated now, the bonus inside of a league year is a net neutral once moved (bonus goes off the books, but equivalent amount is turned into dead cap), so it effectively makes bonuses an irrelevant part of intra-season player movement.

This allows teams that are otherwise overcommitted to players on gtd deals to make all kinds of player movements, where the natural irl NFL lifecycle is that having a high percentage of gtd deals also constrains the ability to move players in an outgoing fashion or offer gtd contracts in the future do to potential over-the-cap consequences. 

Making guaranteed money behave like IRL also makes more sense when you consider what it represents and why the NFL does what they do. It's the money paid upfront as 'bonus' to the player. The rules exist to prevent a team from signing players for only cash and then using the small year to year impact of the contract salary itself to convert a middling player into an attractive trade asset. Owners worked together irl to make this rule that prevents that shenanigan because they have a vested interest in avoiding bonuses in contracts as opposed to paying salary year to year.

agree with this

 

[tsweezy]

While there are a lot of things to say about the new rule changes. To be specific about things, I think that the rule about no trades generating 8M dead cap hit as of this moment should be rescinded, and only the 2025 dead cap hit rule implemented as a future change.

It is very unclear to me what issues this change is intended to address. I actually do agree that dumping players for 0 money is exploitable, and I think that the changes to accelerate dead cap penalties address that (hurting me in this particular case, but I digress). By placing a limit based on bonus money instead of time with a team or age, it fundamentally is saying that trades should be based on moving draft picks for recently drafted players or backups. Many of the players (most of the "good" ones) signed in FA are going to command more than 8M in gtd money yearly, and this is saying that "those" players are the ones who should not be traded.

But functionally, it's exactly those players being traded which are the purpose of trading in the first place. Conceptually, the "purest" form of trading (which I am inferring is what people want to see instead of exploitative cap chasing) is to take a player at a position of strength and trade him to a team with a need at that position to get a player to plug a hole on the roster. And if the sum of that trade can't exceed 8M in dead cap hit, it is effectively banning swapping players who individually have greater than $4M in guaranteed money due this season. 

 

I did a perusal of the first 10 rosters, and there are ~95 players with an overall of greater than 70 (somewhat arbitrary cut off for "good starter"). Ignoring punters and kickers, 46% of those players have a guaranteed hit of >= 4M this season and hence cannot be swapped with each other. So functionally, the result of this rule change is that it will cut in half how many starters can be traded, but allow the same number of trades for draft picks and minimum contract players. Considering that most users want to trade for players to bolster holes on their roster, this is effectively cutting in half the number of options there are to try and fulfill the "purest" form of trading. I think this is a significant effect (banning half of trades for starter-level players) that goes against what is ostensibly the rationale for making the change.

It's impossible to find a consolidate place to see it, but I would wager that more than half of all trades involving a starter level player would go against this rule change. I think that it is not the most effective way to prevent "exploitative actions" or undesired behavior (which I think are addressed by the new dead cap accelerations anyways).

My ideal proposal is to just scrap the 2024 version entirely, going into place a week after several teams made fair trades that would break these rules and blocking a substantial number of trades leading up to the draft that would involve starter players for high draft picks is going to substantially limit options for teams. I would also posit that many of the FA bids ongoing for the higher-end players have been made without the knowledge that they are effectively banned from trading that player for a few years (although seeing as I am unable to see actual contract offers I can't attach a definitive percentage to this).

Alternatively, I would suggest that a different metric be used for which players are defined as "not allowed to trade". If the animus is against "wheeling and dealing" and moving a player several times in a short timespan or immediately after acquiring them, then use time with the team as a basis for blocking trades. Enforce a limit saying if you trade for a player you cannot trade them for X amount of time (I don't particularly like this, but if that's what the rule change is intending to stop then use that as the basis for the rule). Or, if the purpose of the change is blocking users from acquiring veteran players for cheap, set a limit on how much less cap hit you can take from a trade than is outgoing (i.e. if you are trading for a player who was making 20M this season, but they only have 5 Mil of salary, your outgoing trade dollars must be within some limit, 5M or something or you pay the differential in dead cap). 

 

I just think that this aspect of the rule change should be pushed back to next year and a task group or something that strictly spends time thinking about what behaviors should be allowed, disallowed, or just dis-incentivized, and what methods are best suited to achieving that. There are a lot of options for creative thinking in getting where we want to be

[Bundy]

I'm going to write out my thoughts/suggestions in response to the new rules implemented today.

I'm pro "teams have to pay their rostered players something". Could take it further and say teams can only retain X% of salary even, but the paying $0 is 100% gaming the system, and as someone who in oldsim had half a dozen rules created from them finding loopholes (sorry @Jmjacobs ) I know gaming when I see it. 

I'm against the dead cap/trade restriction. Currently, just this year's bonus alone, there's 31 players who absolutely can't be traded this year. Which is fine because some of them are like, fresh FA signings that SF and I did on the OL, clearly we want those players so it's fine they can't be moved. But this rule prevents moving especially higher paid QBs, and I'm going to call it the Aaron Rodgers rule. Rodgers cost the Packers 40M IRL in 2023 per spotrac. The Packers had that cap space, and used it how they wanted to, in paying Rodgers to not be on their team. (But the Jets still had to pay Rodgers).

Currently, 15 - yes, fifteen! - of our teams have 25M or more in available cap space, which is farrrrrrrr more than they'd need to sign draft picks. I've been vocal about how FA needs to be reworked before - length of FA, FA's demands, etc - but if those teams aren't going to be spending their money on FA, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to trade for players with higher cap hits. And if teams have the cap space to trade players with current guaranteed money that might reach 20M, 30M - they should be able to use that space. 

Why shouldn't someone be the Browns to the Brock Osweiler trade? I do think putting a restriction of "$8M in 2024" is arbitrary, because while I disagree with, for example, Washington wanting to move Mathew Madden a year after acquiring him, we also can look to IRL and see Brandin Cooks, etc.

So my solution to this could be

The admin who reviews the trade, reviews it

-I don't want to create more work for the literal volunteers who run this, but I think looking at it for even 2 minutes can say "this is imbalanced". If they need to have another set of eyes look it over beyond that, they could, but it wouldn't slow down the trading process.

Users: be ethical when trading, especially with newer members

just wanna give a shoutout to @Spoof who has been very balanced in trading (at least, with me). Be like Spoof. If you're bothered by being effected by having to pay your players something, you know you were gaming the system. 

Some sort of offseason league meeting where the owners vote

-this is when new rules like "requiring FAs to sign 0,5/salary per year" or "restricting dead money" could be discussed and voted on by the user base (through their team owners). Wouldn't have to be a true "everyone sits down" meeting either, I know it's hard to block time off for EVERYONE to be involved, but it could be a discussion post with a poll or something that everyone gets a week to hash out and vote on.

(trial period) Renegotiation stage

-try this once and then if it goes well, could be a regular thing. Wouldn't be "tearing up the old contract and giving a new one", but could be "converting salary to bonus which gets spread across the current remaining years" which is something that happens IRL, allowing teams to reduce their current year cap hit and the player gets guaranteed money. This might help like the Patriots (convet 6M of Nguyen's 10M to bonus, freeing up 4M and allowing them to make their draft picks without cutting/trading their players. Steeler's could convert 4M of Tamayo's and save 2M, etc). Wouldn't effect when players get extended, and obviously wouldn't effect players in expiring deals, but while I said 15 teams have too much cap, there's probably 10 teams who need cap and can't adjust right now. 

5th Year Option

-wouldn't matter until next year anyway since IRL teams decide after year 3 but would be nice to know if it was coming so as to plan ahead

Franchise Tag

same as above with 5YO. 

Speed Up FA/relax FA's pre-draft demands

we're currently 2 full months into FA and it feels like 90% of FAs locked everyone out an IRL month ago with 0 offers. IRL the bulk of FA happens pre-draft, and I've discussed before FAs lessening their desires as time goes on if they don't have offers. 

 

and perhaps most importantly

remove dead cap/trade restriction

let people spend their cap/be competitive. Let them trade their Aaron Rodgers', their Brock Osweilers, their TJ Hockensons. 

 

(I dont want to trade any of the rest of my highly paid players either fwiw, but just my 2 cents)

[Bundy]

This isnt IRL related but could be something we'd implement here as well to help settle some controversy:

Have teams apply for a waiver for trading high bonus players who wouldn't be allowed to be moved under the new (but on pause, along with trading) rules. Team would be like "I want to trade X player for X reason" and then once approved it could come out publicly that "X player is seeking a trade from the X, and has been granted permission to seek out an opportunity." Could limit it to 2 or so requests/team/season, whether they're accepted or denied, would allow player movement similar to IRL (Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Khalil Mack, Roquan Smith, Robert Quinn, etc all generated dead cap hits of $9M-$40M in their respective traded years)

Examples:

Lions start out the season at 0-4, have OLB William Edwards who is old/10.76M GTD/on an expiring contract, so they can't trade him under current new rules. Lions apply to (a committee? Pierce? etc) for a trade waiver, saying something like "we're non-competitive, and Edwards wants a chance to ring chase". waiver is granted, and publicly there is a release that "Lions OLB William Edwards is requesting and has been permission to seek a trade." 

Example 2: Patriots are super tight on the cap pre-draft, have stripped some of their good players down even. Patriots submit a trade waiver request "we're non competitive this year, CB Dustin Phillips is older and has multiple years left, but we're right on the cap and want to do right by him, and trading him even with bonus acceleration would free up some cap", committee/Pierce/whoever analyzes it. 

Example 3: Vikings just signed OT Herman Knott but want to flip him for draft picks. Vikings apply for trade waiver, it is looked at, and denied because Vikings just signed him, he's played 0 games for them, and this scenario would likely mean they're trying to skirt around cap space rules and not acting in good faith on their FA offer to Knott. 

[Bundy]

Could open up Preseason scheduling to encourage activity predraft 👀

[Jmjacobs]

to prevent contracts like these, can we have some sorta ceiling on the salary that can be offered when the contract is 0% GTD

 

[Jambo]

Idea to fix UDFA:

UDFAs should not receive contracts of any value. Oldsim had it slightly right when it came to just bidding on everyone blindly. To adjust to this here, my idea is:

Give every team a set budget of say, 500 points.

The player list remains the same and does not reveal the overall for each player but does reveal the potential.

Max bid per player is 100 points. Tiebreaker goes to the team that was higher in the original draft order prior to any trades. Like a waiver system, once you win one tiebreaker you move to the back of the line.

Players receive 3 year minimum non-guaranteed deals automatically.

Players that are unbid on go to phase 2. Overalls are revealed the same way they are for UDFA now. Same bidding process with the "waiver order" reset to the original draft order, but there is no cap on bid per player. Players also receive 3 year minimum non-guaranteed deals automatically.

Anyone who is unbid on in phase 2 can go to regular FA.

Edited February 27 by Jambo

[Bundy]

16 minutes ago, Jmjacobs said:

to prevent contracts like these, can we have some sorta ceiling on the salary that can be offered when the contract is 0% GTD

 

we already have a rule that makes this ineligible

4: Highest year cannot be more than 100% of the lowest year (or $6M)

[TuscanSota]

1 minute ago, Bundy said:

we already have a rule that makes this ineligible

4: Highest year cannot be more than 100% of the lowest year (or $6M)

Technically this contract is within the bounds of this? Unless someone can clarify the math.

[Spoof]

9 minutes ago, Jambo said:

Idea to fix UDFA:

UDFAs should not receive contracts of any value. Oldsim had it slightly right when it came to just bidding on everyone blindly. To adjust to this here, my idea is:

Give every team a set budget of say, 500 points.

The player list remains the same and does not reveal the overall for each player but does reveal the potential.

Max bid per player is 100 points. Tiebreaker goes to the team that was higher in the original draft order prior to any trades. Like a waiver system, once you win one tiebreaker you move to the back of the line.

Players receive 3 year minimum non-guaranteed deals automatically.

Players that are unbid on go to phase 2. Overalls are revealed the same way they are for UDFA now. Same bidding process with the "waiver order" reset to the original draft order, but there is no cap on bid per player. Players also receive 3 year minimum non-guaranteed deals automatically.

Anyone who is unbid on in phase 2 can go to regular FA.

I'd second this. If adding points is too much of an overhaul consider level of work required. Maybe could even just do a fixed number of players you can choose (25-30 max) and the Waiver order system kicks in then? 

 

Alternatively, UDFAs could be a blind bid like many suggest should happen in the Negotiation Phase of regular FA

[SageBow]

2 minutes ago, TuscanSota said:

Technically this contract is within the bounds of this? Unless someone can clarify the math.

The way I read this rule

 

if lowest year is 1M, the max a later year can be is 2M (100% of the lowest year)
if lowest year is 7M, the max a later year can be is 13M, 6M above the lowest year because that is smaller than 100% of the lowest year (7M)

[Piercewise1]

The difference in Salary between the highest and lowest year cannot be more than $6M, unless the 100% rule gives you even more leeway.

$1M and $7M? Fine

$1M and $12M? Not allowed

$10M and $18M? Fine, because $10M is more than half of $18M.

So you always have at least a $6M spread, but super large contracts can go even higher.

[kwheele]

7 minutes ago, Piercewise1 said:

The difference in Salary between the highest and lowest year cannot be more than $6M, unless the 100% rule gives you even more leeway.

$1M and $7M? Fine

$1M and $12M? Not allowed

$10M and $18M? Fine, because $10M is more than half of $18M.

So you always have at least a $6M spread, but super large contracts can go even higher.

 

so should this be reworded then? 

Edited February 27 by kwheele

[Jieret]

41 minutes ago, kwheele said:

 

so should this be reworded then? it is vague at best and cannot be both maybe upto $6m difference or something... @Jambo thoughts on contract law/language?

An offered contract cannot have a yearly salary* that is more than $6M higher than the contract's lowest yearly salary. Exception: If the contract's lowest yearly salary is over $6M, the contract's highest yearly salary cannot be more than double of that figure.

*This phrase "yearly salary" would have to change, in order to clarify total cash offered or the value year IMO. 

Edited February 27 by Jieret

[Jmjacobs]

mandate eveyone needs to have 53 players on active roster

 

(based on Ricky comment of 30 players last season, idk if this is true or hyperbole)