* THIS RULE HAS PASSED *
I put this as a comment under Franssen’s 3rd contract proposal.. but i thought i’d fire it off here to get some wider viewage.
I love the notion of restructuring contracts. It happens in the NFL all the time (unless you’re Drew Brees): resigning players to new multi-year deals.
What if we allow owners to restructure any contract (add years)
– For players out of the top 10.. owners pay the average of the top 10 salaries at that position.
– For players finishing in the top 10-5 you pay the average of the top 5 salaries
– For players finishing in the top 5 you restructure at the top salary of that position.
This structure goes for any player not just holdouts. players can still hold out under the old rules.
the shortening of contracts could work as Franssen suggested.
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.© 2012, Matt Giorgianni. All rights reserved.
I’m just trying to wrap my head around this. So a player would still need to have at least one year left on his contract, because if his contract was expiring, then the franchise tag would be applied, correct? So you’d have to “pay the man” the year before his contract expired, right?
It seems like this proposal is a bit different than Franssen’s in one important aspect: In his proposal, players take a pay cut for extending them. In yours, it seems like they are getting even more money to add years. Would owners really want to make the contracts even more untenable? I’m not sure I would, but others might.
How would it work if you wanted to pay them less? Or is it always paying them more under this system?
I love this idea. Instead of letting a guy like Jeremy Maclin (1 year left at $1.27) get to Franchise mode, I could resign him for a few years (maybe 3 years with a starting salary of $21.74). I’d be paying more in year 1, but would save money in years 2 and 3 because I wouldn’t be using the franchise tag. This is exactly what NFL teams do to placate players at the end of their contracts.
One thing we could do to pay players less would be to take a guy that’s making a ton of money – like Larry Fitzgerald (1 year, $31.36) – and allow restructuring of the contract based on performance. Fitzy finished 7th at his position last year, so if I restructured him at a Top 5 level as Matt’s proposed, I could get him for multiple years and a starting salary of $26.84 instead of having to pay the 15% increase to franchise him at the end of the year.
The cost are high enough for most players that owners likely wouldn’t be doing this all the time, but it does provide a way for owners to hold on to producing players.
One thing that I’d include is that you have to restructure a player’s contract PRIOR to the start of the final year of that player’s contract.
So in the above examples, I’d have to make the call before our League Year starts on July 9th, when Maclin and Fitzy begin their final years. That way, I’m not restructuring Maclin in Week 13 of season once he’s played well all year and I know I’ll want to Franchise him.
Do you think that this will have an adverse effect on free agency? I feel like the free agent auction is the ultimate equalizer…if you really want to resign your guy, then you have to outbid everyone else. My only concern would be that players don’t hit the market as much.
Can we use this vehicle to decrease years at an increased wage/year, also like Adam’s other proposal?
I think it ends up being an increase in wages in both situations (adding or reducing years.)
I’ve looked long and hard at this, and ultimately had to vote no. I feel like this gives everyone a mulligan on every contract they issue. We’ve already done so much in the last 2 years to get rid of bad contracts (expansion draft, amnesty, etc) that this just seems like it’s too much.
I do think it will prevent good free agents from reaching the market, which would take a lot of fun out of the offseason.
To snarkily copy what you wrote about another of my ideas: What you’re looking for is a redraft league.
This rule is so awesome I can’t even handle it. It’s not about short-term mulligans, it’s about long-term management of your roster.
I agree, the effect would be a reduced FA pool, but who cares? The pool will be the same for everyone, just the way it is for the NFL. It will be all the more cool when a good player (e.g. Peyton Manning) becomes available.
If you want a lot of great talent available every year, have an annual auction. If we’re going true dynasty here, then I think that some form of contract restructuring is necessary. Maybe we decide you CAN’T reduce, only add years. Or maybe the thresholds change, but the point is that in the NFL, you can resign guys to long-term contracts before their current contracts are up. That would be cool here.
That’s not even close to a reasonable argument. The rule is just another way to give owners a do-over on contracts they don’t like. If you think there’s a chance a guy might be good, then fucking sign him to a long term contract at the outset. This wait and see bullshit is for weak owners. Anybody who votes for this lives his life in fear, and probably touches himself at night.
I honestly have no idea where you’re coming from on this one. Did Osi just get a new contract? What about LeSean McCoy? Isn’t there a lot of angst about Forte and MJD because both would like restructured contracts?
Matt’s rule makes our league more NFL-like: You sign a guy, then realize you want him to stay on longer. You have to pay more money to keep him. There’s nothing weak or bullshit about it.
Frankly, I was surprised to see a “no” vote. I figured this was the best rule of the bunch. Taking the long view, restructuring contracts will help set and maintain the market. If you’d rather artificially prop up Free Agency, then that’s fine, too. But it’s not reasonable to argue that it’s somehow weak or less-fun.
The only one in fear here is Hammond. I like the more NFL-style approach. It’s true that it gives more Do-overs on contracts but that’s more realistic as well. In the NFL there’s only ever a few big name free agents in a given year.. and because of that it’s always pretty exciting to see where they go and how much they get overpaid.
Without the chance to restructure and what i’ve learned is that for low-rung free agents you’re better off signing everyone to very long contracts. the cost of cutting a 7 yr contract is no different than a 2 year.. and if someone blossoms your stuck trying to franchise tag them and then only for two years. it’s all very unreasonable and annoying. It’s also totally unreal that an NFL team would just sign some hopeful prospect to a 7 year contract.
Restructuring is not without peril, you might see people restructure someone they think is going big only to see them bust and then the fans get outraged while their opponents chortle. And when it comes down to it I always favor more chortling.
Finally it should induce more trades. I know that some people (for example) would love me to trade them Roddy White, but they’re unwilling to give up too much because all they end up with is 1 or 2 remaining years on a contract.. Given the chance to trade for a coveted player, and given the chance to restructure that player’s contract there would be more hot, hot Roddy action (among others).
Well, it certainly would drive player prices up.
I like the argument that it will make it more like the NFL…”look, we can restructure contracts, just like the NFL…which will lead to more trades. Just. like. the. NFL?”
However, one positive side effect to this rule is that you’d have to do better in the draft, because it’s really going to be the only way to secure the league studs (since they won’t make it to free agency until they are too old.)
Then when you find a stud in the draft, like Julio Jones, Adam can offer you hot garbage in a trade proposal and boo-hoo about how you never make trades with him.
Holy crap! Did you see the Broncos extend franchise kicker Matt Prater for 4 more years? RUINING free agency.
Yeah, because it’s the contract extensions for kickers that I’m worried about.
Being new to the league, I’m not steeped in its long and glorious history, so I don’t have a good intuition for what is “good” and “bad” for the league. From what I’ve read here, I’d say it seems reasonable to extend contracts into the future. But, I agree with Adam’s suggestion that contracts could only be extended, not reduced (what player would sign a reduced contract?).
It sounds like there’s some reasonable concern that this would slow the turnover in free agents. If so, how about allowing extensions with some sort of penalty. Such a penalty could be in terms of salary (e.g., instead of top 1-5 getting salary of top at that position, how about top salary +10%, or some other arbitrary percentage). In other words, if you wanna keep a player long term, you gotta pay a little extra. This might balance the desire of owners to keep their core around for decades. This could end up being a problem if it drove player salaries up too quickly.
Another (not mutually exclusive) type of penalty could be some minimum duration of the restructured contract (e.g., restructured contracts must be for 3+ years, or some other arbitrary duration). Typically in the NFL, restructured contracts are meant to keep good players long-term. It wouldn’t make much sense for a player who has one year remaining on their contract to sign a two year extension. Again, this might make owners think twice – you can keep your good player, but he’s going to be on your roster for at least 3 years for better or worse. This is undermined if owners can easily drop players with these long-term extensions (which seems to be the case, if I’m reading the league rules correctly – just 50% of the contract in the following year?). We could require extensions to be “special” contracts that owners have to honor (e.g., if you extend a player for three years, and cut him after 1 year, you have to pay the 50% for BOTH of the remaining years, or perhaps some declining scale).
Those of you with more experience should feel free to shoot these down. I only offer them as starting points for discussion.
I like some of Marcot’s ideas here. If we were to clarify this, then I could be convinced to change my holdout vote to a yes and pass it.
I find the salary tiering mechanism to be cumbersome. What if we just made a rule that said, “if you want to sign your player to a long term deal, then the starting salary has to be based on the top-5 salaries of that position.”
Top-5 money to extend, regardless of where he finishes. Let’s call it the Matt Forte rule. Forte wants top-5 money even though nobody thinks he’s a top-5 back. Our players could be similar in their wrong-headed thinking.
I also think it’s important to include Franssen’s idea about extending contracts BEFORE a player enters his final season.
I don’t really like the idea of reducing years as part of restructuring. That doesn’t really happen in the NFL. Teams aren’t generally like, “Hey, let’s make the FA thing happen sooner.” Also, the mechanics of that seem annoying to me.
So, to summarize, I can be on board if:
1. Any player you want to restructure gets top-5 money (just an easier formula to follow.) Of course, if for some reason that formula would result in a pay decrease, then we can just default to the old 15% raise standby (like if you want to franchise tag the top-paid player at his position.)
2. Extensions must be declared before a player enters his final contract year.
I actually still like MG’s money aspect. Why should a scrub you want to extend get top 5 money? Plus by using the top 5 only just helps prices stay elevated.
If he’s such a scrub, then why are you extending him? I’m just looking for ways to make it more manageable.
Seriously? Because a player may be good, but not Top 10 good. There’s 12 teams and only 10 Top 10 positions. Heaven forbid if I want to keep my #2 or #3 WR around without paying him Top 5 money. For instance, if Garcon had like 1 year left, and I really thought he was going to be a Top 10 or 15 WR with the Redskins, then it totally could make sense for me to extend him out from 1 year to, say, 3.
First, given that this rule has passed with heavy support regardless of your position, no one gives a shit if you’re on board or not.
Kidding! No one gave a shit before the rule passed.
Kidding again! Such a prankster.
Seriously, we need to have some sort of tiered approach. As with the Holdout, but we could simplify things. But seriously, if your player is a Top 30 guy, there’s no need to pay him Top 5 money. Combining the ideas from above:
1) You may not reduce a player’s salary or years, only increase.
2) Extensions must be made PRIOR to the start of the last year of a player’s contract.
3) You must extend a contract by AT LEAST 2 years (if I’m reading Marcot right, your player with 1 year remaining would then have a 3 year deal).
4) Extensions for players outside the Top 10 earn Top 10 money. Extensions for players inside the Top 10 earn Top player money (streamlined & more expensive so we don’t have to worry about the whole 15% raise vs. Top 5 money thing).
5) Players holding out are extended/reduced via the Holdout rules.
I think that these rules will be harsh enough to keep owners honest and Free Agency vibrant without Marcot’s draconian 10% or cut penalties. I mean, even 50% of of a corner’s salary would be around $5, which is a hit most of us would rather avoid where possible. 50% of a QB or RB is almost unthinkable.
I’m still voting for MG’s tiered approach. Except maybe instead of the Top 1, make it the average of the Top 3. All 3 figures are on the Top Salaries page, so there is nothing to figure out. I’m just worried if rely too heavily on matching the top salary, that we’re going to disrupt eventual shrinking of some of these contracts and instead, keep some of them high for like ever.
Ha! I like it. I mean, if your player finishes 30th, you’ll still have to pay him top-10 money to extend him.
And I also like the concept of two price points rather than 3 or more.
So, my only question is, does “top money” (for the guys in the top-10 you’re extending) mean the same salary as the highest paid player, or does it mean the equivalent of the franchise tag?
I’m with Hammond that 2 price points is better than 3 or more.
And I like Enright’s idea to make it Top 3 (i.e., the Franchise tag) rather than Top Salary.
For example, if I extend Fitzy, it would SEEM like he’s getting a pay cut ($31 if I didn’t extend down to $28.03) in 2012, but in reality he’d still be getting a pay increase ($28.03 up from $27.50).
The only problem with that is that owners of guys with the highest salaries would actually save money with the extension (Chris Johnson would go from $64.70 to $57.90. I suppose we could say that the highest salaried players would have to extend based on their previous salary given rule #1. Or we could just admit that that’s still a ton of money and let those players slide.
Now, I assume you would only do the extensions in the offseason and base the finish (top-10, outside top-10) based on the previous season, correct? It would be weird to do it midseason, I think.
I think it might be okay to just use the formula you set up, even if a guy gets a pay decrease in year one. Because Johnson would be making $64.70, and then nothing (or presumably a lot less than $64.70 as a free agent.) But if you extended him by 2 years, as required, he now has a 3-year deal, with $57.90, then 63.69, and then $73.24. And that money is surely more than he would make had his initial contract expired. And, it would be a devastating cap hit. So maybe this won’t actually be that destructive to free agency, because you’d have to be crazy to extend some of the big money guys.
I assume that when you extend a contract, it’s like you tore up the old one and began anew, right? So the new salary would be year 1, and then you’d have a 10% increase, and then a 15% increase (and more if you extend more than two years.)
This reply is to Hammond’s 7/7/12 12:56pm.
Yes, I agree with that entirely.
Not that it matters, since it has enough votes to pass without me. I’m just not sure we have the formula nailed down yet.
After all of this, I just ended up putting it down in the rulebook as MG had indicated for salary purposes – three tiers. Enright, you are correct that we already have those numbers anyway, so I have stopped my whining about it.
I did add the “Marcot Clause” that says you have to extend a guy for at least 2 years if you do choose to extend him…so a player who would have had one year left on his contract will now have 3 years left.