Off Season Progress Update

We're now at the stage where owners can resign their pending Free Agents.

A big topic that being discussed was what the salary cap would be for our 3rd season. Just like in real life this is a controversial topic as it could potentially make or break teams depending on what the figure itself is. We started at 120M for our inaugural season. We bumped it up to 130M for our 2nd season. I needed help in deciding what it should be for our 3rd because I as well as a few other owners noticed a few teams having Pro Bowl caliber rosters while some having to scrape the bottom of the barrel for the scraps. I know that good GM skills played a huge part in some teams acquiring these talented players, but my point is that these teams maybe shouldn't be able to afford to carry these rosters.

So I consulted with the maker of XFN himself and he shed some insight on how some of the other leagues are coming up with their cap number and keeping themselves competitive at the same time. Let's face it, one of the things that distinguish the NFL from say the NBA, MLB. and Soccer (worldwide) is parity. On any given Sunday any team can beat another. That's what makes the NFL great and that is the way it should be in the USSML. The method I was told is to simply get the average salary of all 32 teams and add a small percentage so that it's not a shock to some teams.

I even went as far as getting some history and insight into salary caps. This is a good read if you're into the business side of the NFL.

Several sports leagues have implemented salary caps, both as a method of keeping overall costs down, and to ensure parity between teams so a wealthy team cannot entrench dominance by signing many more top players than their rivals. Salary caps can be a major issue in negotiations between league management and players' unions, and has been the focus point of several strikes by players and lockouts by owners and administrators

NFL Salary Cap by year

Year Maximum Team Salary
2011 $120 million
2010 Uncapped
2009 $123 million
2008 $116 million
2007 $109 million
2006 $102 million
2005 $85.5 million
2004 $80.582 million
2003 $75.007 million
2002 $71.101 million
2001 $67.405 million
2000 $62.172 million
1999 $57.288 million
1998 $52.388 million
1997 $45.454 million
1996 $40.753 million
1995 $37.1 million
1994 $34.608 million

As you can see at no time in the history of the NFL has the cap gone up by more than 7M. In hindsight our 2012 cap should have only gone up by 5M. This years cap is going to be 133M.

I have a problem on my hands. I have a serious cap issue that I've tried my best to resolve through trading away some high cost/ high talent players to be able to get back under cap to move foward. My question is about the trades themselves and when they are able to go through. My trade with the Vikings has been approved, proposed on XFN and accepted by Vikings but he says it won't accept it and gave him a message like "the rosters need to sync with week 1" or something to that effect. Now if my trades aren't able to go through there is no way I'm going to be able to resign my players. And I mean literally, I may not be able to cut players either while meeting roster requirements. I've already cut my 89OVR LT at 9 mill a year to make room and I was still only able to resign a few players and now I'm right back to near the cap limit. I mean I don't understand why a trade can't go through in the offseason or if somethings out of whack. Please have a look a direct me what to do from here, thanks.

I got the same problem with welker, trades all set up and ready to go, just cant accept the trade cuz its not allowed.

I synched the rosters again. You guys can see if your trades go through now. We're in off season heading into the draft so I'm assuming that's why XFN won't allow any trades. Maybe you have to wait till week one to actually execute them. I can understand you guys wanting to clear cap space but it may already be too late for it. Like in real life, some tough decisions may need to be made. Let me know how things go. Not sure if I can do much to help though.

Yes, I totally understand this and I guess I'll have to suffer the consequences. But I assume in real life NFL teams are able to trade in the offseason so I guess that's why I'm confused. I have a plan of attack if the trades don't go through it's just gonna suck.

yeah, we should be able to trade in the off season. they def can in the nfl. maybe we can do drop and swap for trades not including draft picks.

That's probably the best option. I'm just concerned about the salaries of the dropped players as they will change when they go to resign them. May open up a whole new can of worms if these traded players ask for an arm and a leg in salary. I know even the admin can't bypass what these guys ask for. What do you guys think?

oh yeah, that's right. i didn't even think about that part of it. damn. the only way around that is for us to change the salaries back to what they were when they were released but that would suck to do. the owners would have to PM us the salaries to make it as easy as possible.

I think leaving it alone might be best, would love to trade in the offseason but if we are doing all trades through xfn and xfn is not letting us do it then we are out of luck since we depend on it for trades, salary, caps, etc. Too many things that could go wrong.

Any ideas as to how we'll complete the draft ? If not going all the way to 7 rounds, are we doing 4? 5?

The on site draft is dragging. Idk if it's possible to speed it up but we could probably think of something.

Well see the only thing about it is.

Lots of people traded there 1st or 2nd rounds in the trades that arent able to be processed. So how am i suppose to get my 1st round pick if i dont actually have the 1st round that i picked up in the trade?

Just leave it alone. It's my own doing and my own responsibility and seems like an isolated incident. It's just frustrating not knowing how it happened. I can only assume somehow screwing up Liguet's contract combined with cap penalties. I don't know for sure. But just really sucks when you trade away 2 guys you don't want to trade to fix the problem and in the end it really isn't fixing the problem anyway. Which leads to me having to cut my outstanding LT and now I'm going to have to cut Phillip Rivers because it's the only possible way to be able to resign my players. I can't even trade him and get something for him, I have to cut him lol. Crazy.

@Rvalee.. If u cut Rivers I will give you QB Dalton for free to help you out. I know he no where near Rivers talent but he is young and decent to move forward with.

well its not only u RV. i myself am in a similir predicament

RV im sure you can work something out where u cut rivers but ur giving 1st oppurtunity to resign him if u can afford to..and theres always going to be tough decisions to be made in regards to cap..thats what makes running a team so interesting and makes this sim..although if ur only option is to cut rivers then yea i agree there are some issues there..and yea u made a trade that freed up cap for u and it sucks it cant go through till after the offseason but my sugestion would be that you cut rivers now to make ur resigns and with the money u saved by ur trade with me when FA opens up u get dibs on rivers if u want him. but u'll def have to speak with hittched on that 1.

and yea i found myself in a cap predicament but i made the tough GM decisions to cut guys to make space..even ate a few cap penalties cuz keeping was more expensive then cutting them.

@2Legit.....thanks man, I really appreciate that.

I think I have it figured out, well I don't really but I found myself able to resign everybody except 1 player, that player being LB Shaun Phillips who is demanding 10.5 million a year. Sorry Shaun but not this year. He'll get paid in FA. I still have almost 8 million left over to sign my rookies (I hope lol) and I should be ok for the season without cutting Rivers. I think maybe the cap wasn't updating when I cut everyone last night or what but somehow I was able to pull some strings and hopefully will be alright. Thanks to everyone for your input and 2legit for that offer, I really appreciate it guys.

No problem RV, glad u found a solution.

Damn Phillips.....that's my dude

Go get'em bailey!! He wants to get paid!

nah, i've traded for Kerigan who is younger...if i didn't make that trade i woulda scooped him

Just in reference to Isacc's idea, that's what they do in another league I'm in. They have an "Exclusive Rights" thread and you list all the players you want or need to cut in a thread to make room for the draft and resigning.

Now say I claimed Rivers in that thread, I could cut him to free up my cap space and then in FA Bidding I'm the only one able to bid on him. If I don't then he goes to the FA pool and anyone can scoop him up.

I'm not saying or suggesting we do this, just an example of how something could be done.

I actually like that idea RV. It not fair that we can make these trades in the off season and have to lose certain players or free agents.

I think its a good idea as well. Its similar to the " bird rights " exception in the NBA.

Teams could also start planning for the offseason ahead of time. We know xfn wont let us trade during that timespam. Then do your cap space trades the weeks leading up to the superbowl.

Good talk here guys. Somebody do up a post explaining the exclusive rights thing. Maybe thats the way to go form now on.

got ya hittched