Board 8 > Board 8 National Football League League (B8NFLL) Season 11: The Offseason

(+) Yeah! (+)

ShatteredElysium posted...

I am kinda curious as to what plan was ruined by KCF losing Abdul-Quddus in RFA

Probably just was looking forward to being able to sign him at a tender instead of a full contract for a year, since he's hurting for cap space. I have to imagine he was planning for his 2 guards to get offers and not signing them, but he probably was hoping he'd sneak by with quddus (how do you pronounce this anyway? Cuddus?) Also since his other SS is up for a new contract, he probably doesn't want to sign 2 starting SS's to that kind of money.
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I was hoping to have both SSs on one-year contracts and potentially start Quudus to see how he would fare as the starter. Quudus has recorded at least one sack, FF, and FR in each season while Bethea seems to be a pure coverage guy. My passing D has been outstanding, so I can't complain too much, but Bethea was clearly the least impressive starter statistically last season for me.
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Unrestricted Free Agents (AKASigning Your Remaining Free Agents)

Any player of yours whose contract expired and was not part of the previous event will be included here. This is an extremely straightforward event. You either sign or you do not sign players, Those you do stay on your team, those who don't enter the free agent pool.

When you receive the PM with your slash lines, remember that those are not the deals you have to sign them to. With a few exceptions that I will lay out, you can sign anyone (pending the age/max length rule) to deals 1-7 years in length. If you wish to give a player a custom offer, we can bounce PMs off of each other for a while (remember that there is a deadline though and delay in response could be a day or longer). If you wish to offer someone a deal of a different length but do no want to bother with the financials, you can merely say you want to give X player the default deal for Y years.

There are only two wrinkles for this event. One is that a few players might hold out for better deals. I can confirm that two users have a holdout. What happens is that I will isolate them in the PM and tell you their base deal. If you elect not to sign them, they will stay on your team without playing a down for you until you trade them, release them, or give into their contract demands. Keep in mind that any guaranteed money still left on their contract (annual bonus) is transferred over to the new contract.

The second wrinkle is that some players hate your team to where they will only sign via the franchise tag, which is a one year deal that pays them the average of the Top 5 salaries at their position or 120% of what they made last season, whichever is higher. I will isolate those players and also tell you how much money that comes out to as of this moment. The franchise tag has only been used twice to my knowledge, so while I am not expecting anyone will use it, you never know.
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Signing Your UFAs Rules

1. I will PM everyone their UFAs and the slash line (length/total/signing bonus) of their desired deal. I will also include and isolate any players who are either holding out or hate your team to where they will only sign with you if you place the franchise tag on them.

2. You will PM me back with the following format (using two players from my team as an example)

Re-signing:
SS Antoine Bethea 2 / $6.20 mil / $640k
or
SS Antoine Bethea 3 year default

Franchise Tag:
Nobody

Not re-signing:
LE Matt Roth

The deadline for signing your UFAs will be Wednesday, December 5th at 6 PM ET
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All UFA PMs except for the Seahawks should have gone out.
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It's time
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Me and Stan were able to use the chat earlier.

I also poked Jablax about the messages yesterday and even gave him a direct link to PMs. I'll try again.

Man it feels like some of my players are being greedier than usual in their demands this offseason. I underestimated the demands of virtually every player I have up for renewal.

I'm sure it goes off some sort of formula involving OVR and other factors but Mike Pearson is a prime example.

Last contract renewal - LT Mike Pearson (91) - 3 / $16.86 mil / $4.62 mil
This contract renewal - LT Mike Pearson (91) - 3 / $22.56 mil / $6.24 mil

Granted Pearson had a holdout between those 2 points.

It seems like all my players want the same salary they had in their final year of their contract as their average per year in the new contract even if their rating is the same. And the final year of the contract should never be the average, it should be above average.

Nothing I can do about it, just found it super weird

Actually found a few other examples too

Last contract demands
WR Carlos Thomas (80) 3 / $8.76 mil / $1.47 mil
TE Tate Casey (85) 3 / $6.81 mil / $1.17 mil
TE Derek Schouman (76) 4 / $5.60 mil / $840k

New Demands
WR Carlos Thomas (80) 5 / $17.50 mil / $2.90 mil
TE Tate Casey (85) 3 / $9.30 mil / $1.71 mil
TE Derek Schouman (77) 3 / $5.43 mil / $810k

Significant jump in demands despite rating staying the same or only a minor increase. I thought maybe it was a case of guys demanding higher as they got older / more years in the league buuuuut

C Brad Meester (94) - 3 / $10.56 mil / $2.79 mil <---- 33-34 years old at time of contract
C Andy Levitre (87) 2 / $6.28 mil / $1.40 mil <---- 29 years old at time of contract

No idea what it is but something is causing players to demand more money (at least for me anyway)

Perhaps it goes off of what other people are paying their players of the same position and value?
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The game could be recorrecting for an overall drop in skill level at a position. WRs, TEs, and Cs have seen the sharpest drops in talent league-wide on the offensive side of the ball.
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49ers are looking to move QB Nick foles, looking for draft picks
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I've in general noticed player salaries going up every year I've been in the league. One of my crappy back-up DEs dropped in rating from last year and is now asking for a bit over $1 mil a year for 4 years. I want to say he was getting like 600-800k last year, and now he's 62 OVR.

I've noticed the low offer for your own RFAs going up every year, and my SS Lewis Baker who has 2 years left on his 6-year deal I signed him to away from the Broncos in RFA 4 seasons ago will only be payed like $30,000 more over these last two years of the deal than the 2-year default deal Broncos RFA SS Scott Morris (95 OVR) was looking for. There are some minor differences between the two like, even though they are both rated 95 OVR now, Baker was either 92 or 93 OVR when I signed him, and I signed him to more bonus money and (I believe) total money than Baker was originially asking for (and definitely more bonus money than Morris was asking for). But there are also striking similarities in that they were both highly rated Broncos SSs that were 26 at the time of their RFA.

The average money per year Morris was looking for, however, was close to $1.2 mil more than what I gave Baker a few seasons ago.

Well iirc the actual cap ingame goes up as well right? Like if we were playing by the same rules as the AI then our cap space would scale with ever-increasing contracts. But it stays the same because in years past, people were having too easy a time with it. If I'm right on that, perhaps we should take a look next year at starting to increase the cap again? Like maybe not to the level the ai has it but like, by the same amount. That would still keep us lower than the AI while keeping us on the same pace.

But maybe I'm wrong.
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I can consider going up to $159-160 mil next season. The in-game cap space is something like $204 mil, which is insane.

That being said, I do prefer forcing teams to make tough decisions and the well-off teams to spread their "wealth" around.
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I also enjoy having to make those choices, but we also don't want to have the gap between what we and the AI are capable of so that we start getting blown out every year imo.

That said, I don't think we're there right now. It was merely food for thought going forward.
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KCF0107 posted...

I can consider going up to $159-160 mil next season. The in-game cap space is something like $204 mil, which is insane.

That being said, I do prefer forcing teams to make tough decisions and the well-off teams to spread their "wealth" around.

What's the user cap currently at?

Also, is the issue with the $204 mil cap that the AI just won't spend money to compete with users (I know it's been explained before by KCF; I just don't remember)? Obviously with more cap space in real life, it just means that everyone spends more, so it doesn't quite matter so much since everyone is going to devote a certain percentage of their cap to certain positions/players, but I guess if the AI for some reason doesn't spend their money, then it becomes a competitive balance problem.

I feel like in the last couple of year some of the AI teams have acquired some of the big name free agents though, so maybe we're in a good spot and should up the cap slightly each year for users, but I'm just guessing and leave that in the more knowledgeable hands of KCF.

I think the game is just scaling contracts with the increasing cap and now we are a few years behind the increasing cap, we are seriously feeling the crunch. What was the cap last season for AI? For some reason I had it in my head that it was ~170m but it can't have been if the cap is now 204m

And I echo Emerald's statement. My largest concern is the gap between the users and the AI. We will have to make tough decisions whereas the AI is never going to have to let their best players go due to cap reasons.

It's kind of double edged. It does force the better user controlled teams to share the wealth but there is now a larger advantage to developing players and having them under cheaper contracts than their OVR is typically paid. And the lesser teams struggle to develop players leaving them struggling against the cap.

It's a tricky one. Like I don't feel like I've been horrible with my contracts in recent years (Turner being the outlier but I shouldn't feel the effects of that yet) but I feel like I'm about 10-13m short of where I need to be (So realistically maybe we are 5-6m light?). I even made the conscious effort to trade for players with desirable contracts last season to try help out the cap situation. I can cut players and sign some garbage to fill holes but it feels like that shouldn't be the solution every year.

theawesomestevr posted...

KCF0107 posted...

I can consider going up to $159-160 mil next season. The in-game cap space is something like $204 mil, which is insane.

That being said, I do prefer forcing teams to make tough decisions and the well-off teams to spread their "wealth" around.

What's the user cap currently at?

Also, is the issue with the $204 mil cap that the AI just won't spend money to compete with users (I know it's been explained before by KCF; I just don't remember)? Obviously with more cap space in real life, it just means that everyone spends more, so it doesn't quite matter so much since everyone is going to devote a certain percentage of their cap to certain positions/players, but I guess if the AI for some reason doesn't spend their money, then it becomes a competitive balance problem.

I feel like in the last couple of year some of the AI teams have acquired some of the big name free agents though, so maybe we're in a good spot and should up the cap slightly each year for users, but I'm just guessing and leave that in the more knowledgeable hands of KCF.

It's at 157m and I want to say it has stayed at that for maybe 4 seasons now.

The issue with 204m is that the AI won't pay over the odds for players so when users were on equal footing with them, AI would never get the good players as users had too much cap room to throw about.

The issue now seems to be that users have no money to play with so have to let good players go. Whereas the AI never needs to let good players go and they get the good players in FA too. And whilst some AI will still do bad, it does mean that teams like the Broncos are now always going to be good. They don't have to let their excellent players go (unless they demand due to play time) and they also develop way better than users due to how good they are. I'd imagine we'll start seeing more AI teams like that as time goes on too.

I might make an executive decision to increase this season's salary cap to $160 mil unless people are vehemently opposed to that.

I will not guarantee it will be increased next season, but I want to point out that arguably the three best user teams (Cowboys, Dolphins, and Jags) will greatly benefit from this.
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For the record I'm not saying it's out of control or anything, just that it's something that needs to be monitored.

Like I cannot realistically see how a user team could catch the Broncos whilst they remain AI controlled. Any user team is going to hit a ceiling where progress halts due to the cap. Essentially the Dolphins are the best the users can hope for. Butting up against the cap ceiling and making flurries of trade for draft picks to stay under the cap and then hoping the players come in develop slightly better than the players going out whilst still on cheaper rookie deals.

I'd imagine that will start becoming problematic soon too though as rookie contracts are likely scaling up too.

I hesitate to suggest this because I'm wary of how much extra work it would be for you but maybe instead of increasing the cap, you could have 'Dead Money Forgiveness'. Where the first X amount of dead money (3-5m?) is ignored.

That way it would possibly still encourage the better teams to trade to make use of it. Whereas if they opted not to trade, they effectively don't get to make use of it unless they cut. It would also allow teams in dire straits to get rid of a bad contract without screwing themselves.

I know that would be slightly double edged in that it could encourage people to be irresponsible with contract offers and the point of dead money is to punish people for doing that.

EDIT: Also maybe make a note of what the AI spend this year and move ours accordingly. If all the AI are at like 175m+ for example then maybe we need to be in the 160s. However if quite a few of the AI are at 157m or lower (or even like 165m or lower) then maybe we are making too big a deal out of it. Be interesting to see where the Broncos are at too.

Only a few AI teams each season go beyond the user cap. I want to say that last season was just the Broncos and Redskins.
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I would personally be in favor of not doing any increases unless we have a season's heads up. There's too much chance of people doing things accounting for a certain number, and if it's increased on a whim, it may have been for nothing. Especially mid-offseason. I mean I know we've just done RFA and that's it, but even that could have ramifications.

I don't think the AI situation is out of control yet, just because an AI team is the best in the league doesn't necessarily mean it's going to stay that way. That's another reason I'm willing to wait until next season, if let's say, the broncos clean house again, then yeah, I think we should be worried. But as of now, what, AI teams have 1 SB win? I think we should see if it's a trend before taking any action.

I don't know how feasible the dead money forgiveness thing is. Not only would that make a lot of extra work for KCF having to keep track of it (since that's a mechanic that's baked in to the game, he would have to keep track of it entirely of his own accord), but it also kind of changes the mechanics of how the league operates. You're supposed to be punished for letting guys go early, that removes that drawback, as you mentioned.

Tl;dr I think we should wait at least a season before implementing any changes.
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AI have won 1 SB and 3/20 SB reps have been AI teams.

I am not at all in favor of dead money forgiveness. I had to implement changes to clean up the league last season, and I only see bad things coming from promoting people to be lazy and sketchy.
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The game tells you the dead money each team has for the year otherwise it would be miserable just to work out the 157m we currently have. (That was in respond to Emerald rather than KCF)

I wouldn't mind the cap going up this year but I'd be okay with it staying the same if that's what everyone else wanted.

In other news, the 49ers/Dolphins and Wildcats/Dolphins trades are official.

We also have our fourth off-season trade!

Bears receive:
DT Joe Upshaw
K Sergio Aguayo
S12 4th round pick

Dolphins receive:
Bears 2nd round pick
S12 2nd round pick

Stan has to confirm and the trade is up for 24 hour peer review.

For a little elaboration, Upshaw and Aguayo are sign-and-trades and will count $6.2 mil post-trade against the cap.
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So I've thought some, and I'd like to amend a previous statement. Before, I said I'd want a season's heads up for any cap changes. Well, I think that sounds pretty unfeasible, because that would mean you'd have to say what next year's cap is while this year's season hasn't started yet. IRL they announce the cap before the offseason starts, I think that's how I'd want it done if there were any changes, that way KCF can surmise if there needs to be any tinkering with it by actually being able to see the figures in front of him, rather than guessing for the next year.

So I'd be fine with changes, as long as they're done before the offseason officially begins. And I mean, i'm not "vehemently" opposed to changing it midseason, I won't gripe if you and other users deem it the correct course of action, it's just a consistency thing with me.
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Yeah I am admittedly not the best at managing my cap space but having more of it may have influenced me.
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I think I'm good with whatever KCF decides. Maybe I end up offering more for Morris, but maybe I don't and hang on to it for draft picks/free agency anyway. Not sure what I would have done since we're only talking about $3 mil - not a crazy increase or anything.

I think what Emerald's saying makes sense about changing it before RFA starts, but I also recognize that what we're doing here isn't an exact science, so I'm ok with whatever.

Im fine with whatever but do think that it would be nice to know the situation before we have to finish up our rfa
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or whatever phase we are in now rather
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Ideally changes come at start of offseason but honestly I don't think changing it after RFA makes a big deal. It's not like you know your cap room when bidding anyway. Like sure you have total cap space but you're blind on your free agent demands which are going to take up most of your space. I was over 5m off in my guesstimate of free agent demands. Plus I then lost extra cap room through losing a CB (because no way can I replace him for the same price as RFA tender value)

I agree for consistency it should come at offseason start but I think ultimately if KCF changed it now for this season it wouldn't make a difference competitive wise to if he had made the change pre RFA. Actually I might be the one most affected as I likely bid Osmele over Fletcher and give McGuire a higher tender if I had 3m more cap space.

But as I've said, I'm ok with leaving it as it is if KCF wants to keep it simple and reevaluate at season end. Whatever KCF decides is good with me.

Not important, but in case you guys didn't believe my earlier post:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelechi_Osemele

KCF, when you say we can say "default X year", if I say "default 3 year" does that mean it's just like chopping off the 4th year for what that player is asking for or what exactly?
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When I go into the re-signing menu in the game, I am presented with three categories with increase/decrease arrows. As you may have guessed, they are the components of the slash line.

The deal that I give for each player is what I call the base deal. It is the exact deal that I see when I go into the re-signing menu. It also is the default deal for however many years that I listed.

Using my own player as an example, SS Antoine Bethea wants 2 / $6.20 mil / $640k. That is both his base deal and default 2 year deal. By using the aforementioned increase/decrease arrows, I can change his years and get the default contract for the new length. For Bethea, three years now produces a slash line of 3 / $9.48 mil / $1.02 mil. Pretending someone else was in charge of the Dolphins, if someone asked to sign Bethea to default 3 years, that new contract is what he would be signed to.

As you may have surmised from my example, the original base deal that I list is typically, but far from always, the most cost-effective contract. Increasing or decreasing contract length can cause the annual cap hit and bonus to increase, but usually not by much (rookie signing is a completely different animal).

Of course, there are different factors to consider. Signing everyone to their base deals, usually 2-4 seasons in length, can easily cause future roster and cap space issues, but I hope that you get the gist.
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KCF0107 posted...

In other news, the 49ers/Dolphins and Wildcats/Dolphins trades are official.

We also have our fourth off-season trade!

Bears receive:
DT Joe Upshaw
K Sergio Aguayo
S12 4th round pick

Dolphins receive:
Bears 2nd round pick
S12 2nd round pick

Stan has to confirm and the trade is up for 24 hour peer review.

For a little elaboration, Upshaw and Aguayo are sign-and-trades and will count $6.2 mil post-trade against the cap.

Confirming this

As for the cap space thing, I know it affected was tenders I gave out as I didn't want to give both my RFAs high tenders so I risked Wood with a mid tender. Generally for consistencies sake I'd probably like to know of an increase before the off-season starts but I it honestly doesn't affect me much at all this year I think. So ultimately I'm good with whatever.
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Can someone remind me of the rules regarding contract length and older players? I forget the exact age and length requirements.

The only way that you can sign someone beyond their age 34 season is if it is already included in their base deal.

For example, if someone will be playing their age 30 season, you can sign them for no longer than five years unless their default deal was already 6 or 7 years.

If someone is already 34 or older, then you are limited to their base deal lengths or shorter.
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Needs more trades! This might be the longest I've gone in an offseason without trading yet

KCF0107 posted...

The only way that you can sign someone beyond their age 34 season is if it is already included in their base deal.

For example, if someone will be playing their age 30 season, you can sign them for no longer than five years unless their default deal was already 6 or 7 years.

If someone is already 34 or older, then you are limited to their base deal lengths or shorter.

Thanks. Feel free to ignore the max contract questions I asked in my PM.

Other than the first team who sent a PM, I haven't opened any of them yet and plan to do so, technically, today. However, I have a few things that I want to say and contact a few users directly before doing so.
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Bears/Dolphins trade is official.

Since it appears that nobody was really in favor of doing the increase of $3 mil in cap space, then we will continue to operate at $157 mil this season. There is one thing that I found curious among the comments and want talk about. I wouldn't let your cap space affect how you operate in RFA. You really want to hold onto your player badly or feel that the draft compensation won't be worth it losing him? Go with the highest tender! It came out to $2.52 mil this season. To fulfill all of your roster obligations, you can pay each player on average $3.41 mil. Knowing that the overwhelming majority (something's wrong if it isn't) of your bench and even some starters, such as K, P, sometimes FB, and perhaps a few others, will be making less than that, many times substantially so, that $2.52 mil can come out as an absolute bargain or at least be palatable to swallow.

It is also probably easier than you think to free up cap space. It might not result in the most ideal outcome, but sometimes you have to decide if you prefer higher-end starting talent with shallower depth or mid-tier talent with some decent depth. Some words of advice if you do not feel that you are good at managing your cap is to to not pay much for the last member of a position that will not see much time barring injuries, such as the #3 QB, #4 CB, or #2 FS. If you have a good memory for injuries and still have your stat PM, you can easily come up to the conclusion of which players on your team just don't see the field. Don't forget that you don't have to get under the cap, if you were to somehow go over, until the preseason is simmed.
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I have brought this up in chat from time-to-time, and I have probably posted something along these lines once every other season, but I want to reiterate to people that you should always field a competitive team. Even if it seems unlikely that you will make the playoffs, you should at all times try to win as many games as possible.

Player development in this video game does not work like real life. While individual performance does have a great impact on their development, unit and team performance also play a significant role. if you surround good players or players that you see as one of the cornerstones of your team present and/or future with poor or lackluster teammates, the chances of their development being stalled or their regression being accelerated regardless of how they personally play substantially increases. A LB early or midway through their career could have a sensational season, but if their fellow starting LBs were relative no-shows or even worse, the entire defense was a total pushover, then your LB has a great chance of improving by just one point, see no changes, or even digress.

As an example, the Columbus Pioneers ended the season on a seven-game losing streak with the defense completely eroding and becoming the worst in the league by a decent margin. Defensive Player of the Year candidate and MVP candidate, then 29-year old LB Kamerion Wimbley saw no rating change come the offseason. The season before, Packers' 32-33-year-old LB Spencer Havner was a co-MVP winner and by virtue of not having his defensive comrades let him down, he actually saw his rating rise despite being in the waning years of his career.

If you applies this to your entire team, you might see some players go up a point or two after the season ends, mostly the players just starting out their careers who already get an end-of-season boost. but if four times as many see their ratings drop multiple points, then you're going backwards as a team. So if someone adopts a roster-building philosophy that has them doing a sizable teardown and doesn't supplement that with a plethora of high draft picks and/or being a major force in free agency, then you are destined to fall into a cycle of poor or mediocre teams. I would have to assume that isn't very fun nor is it good for the health of the league. There are some examples that I can use of teams that just weren't getting it done but stuck with it and more or less worked out in the end.

The Cowboys are a team that have picked in the Top 10 five times. Their GM was periodically active in free agency. They were patient, and ultimately everything clicked after several seasons and have reeled off four straight SB appearances.

The Pumpkins have picked in the Top 5 three times. Instead of throwing in the towel, they held onto their key players. They had a string of good draft picks, and once the AI took over, they went after free agents hard. They had a non-losing record for I want to say four straight seasons before the hiccup last season. While it never resulted in a playoff appearance as they were victims of being in arguably the toughest division and a historically the tougher conference, they were statistically one of the best teams in the league, and the player development proved that. They remain a playoff caliber team and will likely remain so for at least the next few seasons.

The bottom line is that you should always try to field the best team that you can. That doesn't mean that you should always hold onto players you no longer want on your team just because they have a good rating. I'm just saying that you if feel that you need to make plenty of changes for your team, do not rebuild but retool or the future for your team will likely be grim.
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So thats why Tavon Austin had a good off season, being around the best reciever?
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Introduced last season were measures to prevent users from gaming the system. I blame myself for it getting out of control, but I had hoped that would nip all those problems in the bud. What I never did was have measures in place to prevent users from taking advantage of other users, whether it is intentional or not.

Sure there is the veto system in place, but it is very clear that I view things differently, mostly perhaps due to my role as commissioner and my vast history with the game. As some already know, I think that a good chunk of the trades being made are kind of bad, whether in terms of value, sense, and/or present and future ramifications. I would estimate that even as high as 90% of the trades being done have at least one side that if I were in their shoes, I would have walked away from the deal. I tend to keep quiet publicly on most trades with the occasional chiming in to express my thoughts and ask pertinent questions from both sides that neither may have asked themselves or each other. I know that because of The Trade perhaps my reputation took a bit of a hit, but out of the hundreds of trades that have been made across 10+ seasons, I have actually only used my commish powers to nix two outright with a couple others being pseudo-rejected and ultimately have the parameters restructured after further explanation cleared things up for all the parties involved.

I honestly feel that for the size and scope of this project, I am an extremely lenient commissioner. I ultimately want everyone to have fun and share success while shaping their team in the vision of their choosing, and I feel that I let everyone do that 99.9% of the time. I am more than willing to impart any knowledge that I have to aid everyone including giving in-depth analysis and advice for virtually anything. I sincerely hope that people feel that I have done a great job running this and always feel that they can come to me for anything. I know that this project entirely hinges on my word as there's no stream, video uploads, or even screenshots shown, and the moment that faith is lost in me is the moment that I know the the present and future of B8NFLL is in trouble.

With that being said, I feel obligated to do a better job of protecting certain users, namely those that tend to be very agreeable. I know that it can be hard to say no when someone tries to engage you in trade talks or outright makes a proposal to you, and I hope nobody has said yes to one of my trade requests just because I'm a commissioner or they are afraid of telling someone no. I feel like I'm never pushy, and I'd like to think that if I feel like someone has very little to no interested at all but are being overly courteous as to try to not and hurt my feelings, I usually end things quickly in a way so they don't feel like they strung me along and wasted everyone's time. I also feel like I am very transparent when I do trade talks and explain how I viewed the trades from both sides and the big picture.

I don't really know how other people go about trading with other users though. On occasion, I am given a heads up on a potential trade just so they can get my thoughts on it, but for the most part, I am totally out of the loop how everyone conducts their trade business. I have noticed in recent seasons an uptick in trades that I have suspected one user was being taken advantage of, but as I mentioned earlier I don't really know if it was intentional or not. I never came out and said it but instead entered with a different angle asking questions about how they came up with their value, why the trade was being made, and questions of that sort.
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Last season though, I have to admit that despite implementing the rules minimizing chances for players to game the season, I was still very irked by how things went down, namely in some trades. Sometimes it was the value, sometimes it just didn't make sense, but that happens all the time. The trades that really bothered me were the ones that checked out from a value and sense standpoint but a deeper dive showed that one side was likely to face glaring negative consequences that I feel the recipient of that wasn't aware of that but the other was and didn't bother to tell them. I wasn't going to say anything at all until one user recently made an admission about one thing that I feel was also an indirect admission to taking advantage of a user last offseason.

I originally said that I was going to contact a few users about this, and I still might, but I'm hoping that people who conduct trades with others will start to become a little less self-centered and a little more aware that your actions can impact the happiness of present and future users involved in this project and also that I have spent well over 1000 hours of my life on this project and would rather it not become a former shell of itself. I personally feel that this project requires a great sense of social responsibility from everyone involved and when people start to veer away and exclusively or almost exclusively look out for themselves, things can unravel quickly and in an ugly fashion.

I will probably start putting any trades that I deem to have not been conducted in good faith on hold until users are contacted or outright killing, with obviously an explanation, though probably private. I have no qualms about taking advantage of my seldom-used powers to further to clean up the league even if that makes me look like a bad guy. I just hope that if it does unfortunately happen that people realize that I do nothing out of spite. I do everything out of respect for the league and the users who were kind enough to spend their time and effort on this project that I didn't know if it would stick or even take off
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With that being said, I have said everything that I wanted to talk about publicly. Nobody likes soapbox talks, but I hope people respect what I had to say. I might still talk with the people that I was going to do so privately, but that is not my chief concern at the moment. I promise that I will start the rest of the PMs probably later during Thanksgiving.

Thank you for being patient everyone.
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ScareChan posted...

So thats why Tavon Austin had a good off season, being around the best reciever?

I don't think it quite works that way given Austin was not a starter but the #4 WR who probably didn't see much of a high volume of snaps shared with Andre Johnson.

However, it is highly likely that Cam Newton making great strides as a passer was predominantly due in part to the presence of a Superstar WR. Having him for two, possibly three more seasons could make Cam Newton emerge as one of the few scrambling QBs who became potent passers. I don't want to fill your head with the belief that will absolutely be what's in store for him, but I gave you a hard time for making Newton your replacement for Big Ben, and after one season, I appear to be totally wrong.
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Now I feel bad because I'm guessing that is partially down to me saying I traded for desirable contracts?

So now I feel the need to explain as I think that may have been taken the wrong way.

These are the contracts I picked up last year that I would say are desirable

MLB Bryan Vinson (84) from 49ers
SS Levi Marquardt (77) from Wildcats
WR O.J. Murdock (83) from Lions
CB Trumaine Banks (85) from Cowboys

Vinson and Banks I wanted regardless of the contract attached to them and involved me sending away really high draft picks (9th overall and 42nd overall I think). Their contracts being good was coincidental. Wiz came to me with the Banks trade and the Vinson trade, I had tried getting an MLB from 4 different people before that so it's not like Vinson was my first choice.

The Murdock trade was made for cap reasons but not for the contract itself. I had excess CBs with a hole at WR. Nee had excess WRs. So I offered to send Nee what would be a CB1 for him for one of his WRs. I feel it's important to note I didn't pick the WR I took back, I let Nee pick whichever WR he wanted to send back and he picked Murdock. I also offered to send a cheap contract back to fill one of his holes as part of the trade which he declined (Marquardt fwiw). This ended up backfiring anyway as then I drafted a WR to be a returner

In Marquardt's case I sent back the draft pick (high 5th) I would have used to draft a SS and the dead money involved was pretty minimal (like 300k total). Deadpool also had 3 SSs on his roster and was in a rough cap spot so taking an SS off him for a draft pick helped him more than me.

Most trades inherently involve desirable contracts due to the guaranteed money being paid by the original team. What I meant by me trading for desirable contracts was that I gave up draft picks for players basically knowing that would save me money and help offset the large amount of dead money I was eating this year.

I wouldn't ever intentionally present an unfair trade to another user. I have also never pressured anyone into a trade. I typically send a PM saying would you be interested in X player or would you be interested in trading away X player. If I get told no, I simply tell them no worries and move on. I have all my trade PMs (because apparently B8NFL is the only time I use the PM system) and have no problem showing any of them.