How long should we have to declare contracts?

[Devil Dogs]

RB Jonathan Dwyer - 4 years
Might pay off if Mendy is really gone

[bonesman]

this looks late... how strict do we enforce the 24 hr rule?

[braven112]

this looks late... how strict do we enforce the 24 hr rule?

This is too late. How strict? I try to give the benefit of the doubt and give an hour or two leeway especially during our offseason auction since the end times can be odd with the 36 hour timer. But this is the second full evening since he was won.

[Devil Dogs]

this looks late... how strict do we enforce the 24 hr rule?

Is this serious? I was like 12 hours late or something. I have a life, it was my last auction and I didn't come here within 24 hours...sorry.

If it was a week later after some breaking news hit I would understand, but it isn't. Give a guy a break.

That said if the commish decides to be strict as you say, I have no issue. Rules are rules.

[bonscott]

Honestly I wouldn't worry too much about it right now and give him the contract. I think there have been others that have been technically late the past week as well. However I haven't been tracking the time that closely.

However I do understand that rules are rules and there is a slippery slope.

Maybe a better rule for the off-season would be 48 hours?

[braven112]

Honestly I wouldn't worry too much about it right now and give him the contract. I think there have been others that have been technically late the past week as well. However I haven't been tracking the time that closely.

However I do understand that rules are rules and there is a slippery slope.

Maybe a better rule for the off-season would be 48 hours?

I don't love the 24 hour rule either and its largley my fault that this is an issue because I have let people get away with being a couple hours late. I also have failed to double check every single contract so I'm sure there have been a few that have slipped though. I try to look out for any obvious offenses and there have been multiple times when people have submitted contracts a few days late and they've had to keep the one year deal.

This one is over 16 hours late if we are going to have a 24 hour rule, I don't want 16 hours late to be ok.

But I would rather that we allow everyone more time to input the contracts during the offseason. We have to be pretty glued to the computer for a couple days and its only reasonable that you take a night off when your auction more or less ends. We all have a life and other obligations so I completely understand and would support changing the rule to allow more time.

If we did 48 hours, I think we should be very cut and dry about it. We'll also need everyone's help to ensure that we are only putting contracts requests on the message board that fall whithin this window.

[bonesman]

Hey DD, nothing personal on me bringing this up... I just noticed it was pretty significantly late (that's relative, I know) and posted something... not trying to c-block you specifically.

I'm all for extending the clock some in the offseason... I think we should consider putting the window back to 24 hrs post draft though. Someone could bring up a bunch of UDFAs and try to sit on them until they see where they end up or something like that.

[griblets]

Personally, I'd like to see the window for contracts to be longer. 48 hours, 72 hours, 1 week...what's the rush?

Same goes for the auction timer, but that's another topic that's already been discussed.

[Achon44]

What if we set the beginning of our rookie draft as the contract deadline for all free agents acquired prior to our draft and then use the same date as rookie contracts for all free agents acquired after our draft?

[bonscott]

What if we set the beginning of our rookie draft as the contract deadline for all free agents acquired prior to our draft and then use the same date as rookie contracts for all free agents acquired after our draft?

Now there is an interesting idea.

[braven112]

What if we set the beginning of our rookie draft as the contract deadline for all free agents acquired prior to our draft and then use the same date as rookie contracts for all free agents acquired after our draft?

Now there is an interesting idea.

I do like the hard deadline for all players that makes it a ton easier for me. It's also adds a twist to FA. We would know were each player is going to play by the time we have to set a contract length for them. And its the same way we handle rookies, so it would streamline things quite a bit.

[braven112]

What if we set the beginning of our rookie draft as the contract deadline for all free agents acquired prior to our draft and then use the same date as rookie contracts for all free agents acquired after our draft?

While I'm thinking about it. We probably want to set up a cut off date of all players acquired 24 hours or greater from the start of the draft. That would prevent a situation where you could win a player a couple hours before the draft and only have a couple hours or less to get your contract in.

So we would end up with 3 offseason contract days. We would need one more at the last day of Free Agency for those last couple weeks. Then back to 24 hours for the season.

[bonesman]

It doesn't add a twist IMO. It actually removes one. Definately against the idea here.

[bonesman]

Weren't we kinda trying to emulate the nfl here with this league?

Implementing some of these ideas will be a big step in the other direction.

Not feelin it.

[Achon44]

Weren't we kinda trying to emulate the nfl here with this league?

Implementing some of these ideas will be a big step in the other direction.

Not feelin it.

Could you explain?

[Wascawy Wabbits]

I think I'd rather keep it as is and just extend the amount of time we have to give a player a contract.

Part of the fun is going with your gut to figure out how long you want to keep a player on your team. Sometimes our gut is right, other times it's totally wrong.

What would happen if you signed a player, but ended up trading them without assigning a contract length? Would the new owner get to decide on the contract length? Or if the system ends up getting abused where someone ends up hoarding a bunch of low salary / unsigned vets, waiting to assign contracts to them until they find out where they get signed in the NFL?

I think increasing the contract length assignment time to 84 hours (3.5 days) would be more than sufficient, giving leeway to those that give notice about not being able to assign contracts due to various circumstances.

[bonesman]

Weren't we kinda trying to emulate the nfl here with this league?

Implementing some of these ideas will be a big step in the other direction.

Not feelin it.

Could you explain?

I'm not sure what part you want me to elaborate on... but NFL GMs don't get weeks to decide how long a contract is going to be for after negotiating salary.

I like the element of not knowing what's going to happen in the draft or freeagency and how it affects our team.

[bonesman]

Or if the system ends up getting abused where someone ends up hoarding a bunch of low salary / unsigned vets, waiting to assign contracts to them until they find out where they get signed in the NFL?

I most definitely would do that. I don't see it as abuse either... totally within the rules... and really, why else would we add that rule if it wasn't to do just that.

[Poker in the Rear]

Whichever way we go I do believe it has to be a hard deadline regardless and if you snooze you lose. While I do have a life, it is what i signed up for when I joined the ranks.

[Achon44]

NFL GMs don't get weeks to decide how long a contract is going to be for after negotiating salary.

True, but NFL contracts are not guaranteed. An NFL GM could sign a player to a 5 year deal for $50M with only $1M guaranteed and if the GM makes a trade three days before the draft and then decides to cut loose that player the day before the draft the team is only on the hook for $1M. There might be other cap ramifications to go along with a move like that, but I don't believe our current rules follow the NFL rules that closely. Any team in our league who would drop a player before assigning them a contract would still be on the hook for 50% of the salary for that season.

What would happen if you signed a player, but ended up trading them without assigning a contract length?

We could have a rule that the contract years for any unsigned players involved in a trade would need to be determined at the time of the trade. This could easily be done in the comments section of the trade.

[Achon44]

Or if the system ends up getting abused where someone ends up hoarding a bunch of low salary / unsigned vets, waiting to assign contracts to them until they find out where they get signed in the NFL?

I most definitely would do that. I don't see it as abuse either... totally within the rules... and really, why else would we add that rule if it wasn't to do just that.

Plus, I'm not sure how low salary they would be seeing everyone would be trying to do the same thing which would drive up the salaries. IMO teams would still have to be careful.

[bocious]

I agree with keeping the current system, maybe extending the clock a little, and holding firm on the deadline. For me, the whole thrill of free agency is the fact that we can't fully predict the future, but allowing a six-week gap between winning the auction and declaring the contract length removes a large part of that unpredictability and thrill.

[Poker in the Rear]

I like the current system as well and if anything just a little longer window is my vote.

[braven112]

I'm for whatever most people want, the current setup has worked well for a lot of years so we don't need a wholesale change if we don't have a clear majority.

I added a link to the auction bids in the forum rules so that will help everyone know what time they won their players. To make it easier for me I would ask that you don't post a contract length if you are already late. If everyone can police themselves first and also point out when others miss the deadline that would be a big help.

Note: The link shows the last auction bid date so currently you have to add 60 hours (36 for auction timer + 24) to the time you see there. If we extend that to 48 hours we would have 84 hours from the time posted.

[bonscott]

Either way I think an extension to 48 hours in the off-season is a good thing. I think we can probably all agree on that one.

Also we all know the rules. If you are late then too bad. Same thing in-season. Sure we all have a life *but* we signed up for the responsibility of this league. I'm not seeing anyone having an issue with that, but it's worth mentioning.

As for a change. I'm always up for listening to new ideas. This new one certainly perks my interest and it's easier to track. Sure I can see some team trying to take advantage of the rule but then everyone has that same "advantage". We all live by the same rules. Having said that there is some fun in taking a chance with your contracts. Take Romo for instance. Had I known other QBs ended up going for so much I probably would have given Romo 2 yrs, maybe even 3. Instead I gave him a 1. But that was the chance I took. There is also the chance you take with a young guy this time of year. May play or may be cut. Do I take a chance on a 5 yr contract or go less to lessen the cap hit later if I have to drop him. So there is cool strategy issues too.

One compromise idea:

We typically start the auction around March 15th or so. Most of the auction is done within a week or two. How about making a March 31st midnight deadline for assigning contracts. Then it's not 6 weeks but allows more NFL free agency to occur to see where things are going but isn't a long period of time to allow for a lot of "taking advantage". This would at most be about 2 weeks for the first players off the board, less for others.

Starting April 1st then we go to 48 hours after the time a player is won until the season starts where it goes to our current 24 hours or kickoff of the player in question, whichever is first.

Rookies of course have until the August cut down day to declare contracts.

How's that sound as an idea?