Initial Commissioner Notes: The past couple of seasons we have been trying to find ways to reduce the length, in time, of the Free Agency Auction. One key factor to the length of the auction is the total number of points available. One other thing that seems to slow things down is RFA bidding. 1st there are always a lot of RFAs and since they currently are not required to be resigned if unbid on many are just place holders with little value and/or players that teams have no interest in resigning and are only listing for the possibility of getting more points back without consequence, which was not the original purpose or idea for the RFA rule. We believe the proposal below addresses both the value of a RFA tag and should have an effect of lowering the amount of points available overall during the auction which should in turn make it shorter.
Prop Sponsor: A.Abrams [Kashyyyk Kommandos (CDL) / Jedi Knights (FSDL) / Evil Empire (TLSL)] w/ editing contributions from B.Eisner [Uncanny X-Men (CDL) / Sinister Syndicate (FSDL) / The Avengers (TLSL)]
The proposal is that RFAs are now MANDATORY to be resigned if they are not bid on, but with various changes to the RFA listing rules.
The changes/effects to the process this will have are this… We still have the same slots for restricted free agents, meaning a 12 point slot, a 10 point slot and 6 slots ranging from 8 down to 3 points. The key difference to the current process is that based on how many players are listed as RFAs and in which slots, each owner must keep in reserve the amount necessary to resign all remaining RFAs based on the slots they reside. Due to this another change would be that you are no longer required to start with a 12 point slot and fill moving down in value with the lowest value last, you can now place any player in any RFA slot or none at all (still only 1 player per value). For example, if you have 4 RFAs listed, in the 12, 8, 7 and 3 points slots, as long as they remain on your RFA list you must keep 30 points back in case they are never bid on and like an unbid on Franchise Player, it is mandatory that you resign those RFAs.
This will serve a few purposes. 1 – It will entice owners to place players on the RFA list that they really want to resign (which was the original purpose of the rule in the first place) and therefore the quality of the players will be increased. 2 – It will reduce the number of points to be initially available overall and we assume over the course of the auction since keeping enough to resign players still in your RFA list is mandatory, so we believe this will help reduce the time of the auction as it seems like UFA bidding is quicker than RFA bidding since there is no time to wait for matching and RFA bids normally go a little higher since you aren’t sure about the matching aspect. So less RFAs in the end means a shorter auction, or at least WE THINK this would be the effect.
Brian has been testing formulas within a spreadsheet that will denote the change in points available for use so it will not add any additional time to the admin process and he will share that with anyone that wants it so owners can track the same info as well during the auction. There would be NO CHANGES to the way RFAs are handle once they are bid on at all. The resigning rules are still the same… Once bid on and the bidding ends the RFA holder will have the option to resign at the final bid amount or release for an FAP rebate of ½ of the bid UP TO the slot level of the RFA.
It is my opinion that this rule change will not only add another strategy twist to everyone’s ability as general manager, it will also make things closer to the actual NFL as the points you carry into the auction become a bit more of a semi-cap. If you have no or less enticing RFAs you may not get many/any points back and can just resign your own players or possibly you could end up losing them all and going after others. It seems like an interest change on the way things have been working in the past to keep things interesting.
Here are a few questions that were asked and answers on how they would apply in the given circumstances:
Q: If a team has 4 RFA's remaining totaling 30 points (12,8,7,3) meaning in the proposal they would no longer be able to bid on new players, and their 7 slot RFA ends at 10 points and they decide to match. They now have 20 points remaining for 23 points of RFAs remaining on the board, do they need to drop an RFA to UFA status to maintain the rule of having to keep enough points to cover remaining RFA's?
A: No. It would be announced that as it stands they can no longer resign all of their remaining RFA's but we would not make teams pick a player to drop matching rights too. In fact, we would not allow at any point in the auction for a team for any reason to voluntarily renouce RFA rights for any player.
Q: If a team skips their turn to bid on a new player becuase they have to keep points to possibly cover unbid on RFA's can they rejoin the bidding if they lose an RFA and get additional points back?
A: Yes. If you stopped bringing up players BECAUSE you are stopped due to point level restrictions, then we would treat this just like we do now when a team gets to 0 or 1 points, and if they get points back they can jump back in if wanted. Noting the above question and answer, what would not be allowed is to drop rights to a listed RFA in order to reduce the needed amount that must be held back and therefore be able to bring up new players.
Final Commissioner's Notes: The base idea to make RFA signing's mandatory was originally proposed in 2012 and did not pass. This proposal however adds additinal changes that make the idea more palatable and workable and this time around the Commissioner's Office believe it actually could have an effect on the length of time of the FA Auction as well as add some very interesting stratedgy to the RFA listing and bidding process. As it stands now, I believe I am in favor of this change (although I am still working thru the pros and cons) as it gets closer to our original idea of the RFA slot being someone you intended to resign instead of just fill in guys to allow for placing someone in the slot they want. This may not be the only way to do this so counter proposals are welcome.
I also believe since some teams may have made trades or moves last off season planning for this season that we would implement this with the 2017 FA period and not this season if it is voted for and passes. I am open to ideas on this as well.
COUNTER/AMENDMENT to PROP #2 - Amendment Sponsor: J.Tanzer [Tanz Devils (CDL)]
As it appears that if this proposal were to pass, it could effectively reduce the number of players available on the RFA side as well as make teams more hesitant to spend big early if they wish to resign any RFAs that are brought up and go higher than their initial slot value, it surmises to presume that there could be a larger number of FAP's remaining for all teams than normally occurs in our auctions. For ex. Team A could have 3 RFA's remaining on their list and be holding 68 FAP. They only need to hold 30 for their 3 players in the 12,10 and 8 slots but in case they go higher Team A is holding extra back to possibly match higher bids. They skip their turn and therefore can no longer bid on new FA's or RFA's. What if in this case their 3 players are NOT brought up. They would be required to spend the 30 points to resign their RFAs but lose 38 FAPs that are use or lose where in the past they most likely would have kept spending.
The amendment to the above proposal is this, that we allow teams that have remaining FAP's to convert them into FPs that CAN be kept and carried into the season. We propose that at a rate of 4 FAP to 1 FP, teams can convert unused FAPs into FPs with a limit of 20 FPs in total converted in this way.
On another note, it is also possible that this could be made into a completely separate proposal, but it is not initially offered in that way but in conjunction with the above proposal. I would have offered this amendment/proposal separately without Al's Prop #2, but believe it should be included as part of Prop 2 OR vote on separately.
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