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Post by WilleB on Sept 19, 2018 23:53:21 GMT -5
How do you handle cap crunches, overspending, etc...
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Post by manwithnoname on Sept 20, 2018 18:44:11 GMT -5
The best way to handle it is to try and anticipate it. Resigning your stud rookies while they're still on cheap contracts is always a good idea. When my QB Danny went down, the next season I checked his asking price and it was pretty low so I resigned him. Had one of the better starting QBs and I was only paying him about 7 million a year. I have two other examples of this on my current Cowboys team. LB Bruce Kennedy, a 64/64, I just resigned him to a 4 year 10 million dollar contract. Or my DT Asher Briggs, a 74/74, is signed to 4 more years for a total of 21.7 million. I always check up on guys before their last year and see if I can't get them to sign a long/cheap extension.
Another way to sign guys to cheap contracts seems to be when you resign them after injuries. Guys always seem to be willing to sign long term for cheap after they've been injured.
Of course, if there's a guy you really want to keep but he's on his last year, don't resign him. Keep him on his current cheap deal for another season then just franchise him. You can decide next year then if he's worth signing and maybe his price will have changed too.
Another thing to consider is guys you have no interest is trading. For example, on my team I have no interest in trading WR Owen Grayvil. We need him to compete so I wouldn't make sense to every move him. So, instead of paying him 20 million a year, I just gave him a ton of bonus money and now that 100 million dollar contract became a 60 million dollar contract. Obviously you want to be careful how many of those types of contracts you offer. I don't like to have more than two of them.
The hardest part is letting guys go when you know they aren't worth it anymore. Probably going to have to cut my long time TE Toby Farley after this season. He's been with me 10 years but he's just not worth 10 million a year. Similar for CB Brent Burton. Only a 58 now and he's not interested in signing for less so just between those two players I'll open up 20 million in cap, and I don't even need to find their replacements because their already on the team.
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Post by ukpatfan on Sept 22, 2018 6:08:09 GMT -5
I don't worry about the cap at all. If I go way over it I know I'll just get fined a 3rd rd pick.....De Nada. Joke. Who do you think I am? Benjamin?
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Post by bdubbs on Oct 3, 2018 21:41:53 GMT -5
I'd have to agree with manwithnoname across the board here pretty much. I try and always be looking forward a year when it comes to planning my roster. The cap, among other things forces a certain degree of turnover on rosters every year, so if you want continual success you have to pick and choose which pieces are most important to your team. I try and keep teams young, because young is cheap. When picking and choosing who's going to get an extension and who's not the first thing I find myself asking myself is if anyone else is going to pay him his ask. If the answer is probably no even if I want to keep him around I'll probably let him walk to UFA and play chicken letting the player sit until his contract asks start getting a more realistic. If the answer is more likely yes then I try and decide just how important that player is going to be to the roster in the current season. If I feel it's not going to be a huge detriment to the roster to lose him I trade him off. Basically I put a large emphasis on trying not to let talent walk to free agency if I can recoup some value for them.
Guaranteed contracts are also a tool I think everyone should use sparingly with players you're committed to. You can cut the overall cap hit of your top guys nearly in half this way which goes a long way to making more room to fill your roster with quality players. There's always the risk of injury, or retirement so GM's definitely need to be careful with these deals. Something I've noticed that's key is to avoid signing guaranteed extensions to multiple players that expire in the same year. I made this mistake on my current team when I first took over and signed my all pro QB and top WR to 5 year deals that are mostly guaranteed. I also created another situation accidentally, which was put my QB at a high risk of holding out on me. I'm already planning to be close to my cap number by TC, and it would be devastating for the roster if I had to clear the space or if I lost the QB to past injustices.
As a result of that fumble I'll probably opt to reneg my QB in early FA, taking significantly more cap burden then if I could have tagged and signed him, set up my star WR or RB for a tag the next season instead, and trade off the player I don't decide to commit to because I could recoup some solid trade value, probably even a 1st for the RB. So yeah, managing the cap is being in your current season and already having an idea of the moves you're going to need to make in the offseason.
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