** PLEASE DO NOT POST IN THIS THREAD **
Please clear out and check your PM inbox often as you will be using them to discuss trades and various other portions of the game.
Please note that some things like dates haven't been decided on yet and some rules may still be tweaked.
2017 Forum Mock Council of Commissioners (“CoCo”):
These nine members are running the game. If you have any questions, please send them toward these members. Please note that certain members have certain responsibilities, which makes them better equipped to answer certain questions.
allblackraven: free agent list
arnie_uk
berad: rules enforcer/moderator
LosT_in_TranSlatioN
RavensFanMania: State of the Franchise
rmw10: trades/draft
-Truth-: State of the Franchise
T3hRaven
Rules for the game are as follows:
- The 2017 Mock Draft Salary Cap shall be set at 173 stars. (1 Star = $1 Million)
- You cannot restructure contracts. You cannot borrow from future cap space or trade future picks
- Everything is rounded to the nearest Half Star (0.5 Star = ½ Million)
Picking Teams
Once all 32 spots are filled in the signup thread, we will begin to select teams. Teams are chosen via a draft-like method. One of the CoCo members will use a random number generator to create the list for the draft. (Your number for that is where you signed up. It is a random number generator, so it doesn’t matter where you signed up. This draft for teams will likely start about 24 hours after all 32 spots are filled. You will have 12 hours to select your team. In order to speed up the process, please forward your list to some other people and let them post for you. Once everyone has a team, the game will begin.
No trades or such will be allowed until everyone has a team and nothing becomes official the notice is given, when all of the official threads will be posted.
Draft Value
You have to leave 5.5 stars of cap space for the normal draft class, which is 1 pick in every round 1 through 7. You add or subtract stars based on whether you have more or less picks than the normal draft allocation. The values of the stars you add or subtract based on your picks are:
§ 1st round = 2 stars
§ 2nd round = 1 stars
§ 3rd round through 7th round = 0.5 stars each
This lets you know many stars you need to leave for your Rookie class. You cannot gain stars by trading away your picks.
For example, the Rams are without their first round pick due to a trade with the Titans. Therefore, their draft class will need 3.5 stars instead of 5.5 stars. If they acquired other picks or trade away picks, the number of stars will change accordingly. You will receive a cap credit for your draft class if you are over 51 players.
Tendering
Franchise Tag costs:
QB: 21.5 stars
RB: 12 stars
WR: 16 stars
TE: 10 stars
OL: 14.5 stars
DE: 17 stars
DT: 13.5 stars
LB: 14.5 stars
CB: 14.5 stars
S: 11 stars
K/P: 5 stars
Transition Tag costs:
QB: 19 stars
RB: 10 stars
WR: 13.5 stars
TE: 8.5 stars
OL: 12.5 stars
DE: 14 stars
DT: 11 stars
LB: 12.5 stars
CB: 12.5 stars
S: 9.5 stars
K/P: 4.5 stars
* Players Franchised for the 2nd straight year cost 120% of the normal rate
* Other special franchise tag rules that are found (i.e. Suh in 2015 having a super-high tag value due to rookie contract will be implemented as well)
* The transition tag rules work the same as the NFL rules. You can tag the player for the value above, but that player will be put into the RFA free agent pool for other teams to potentially bid on. From this point, everything will follow RFA free agent rules (explained below).
* You can only use the franchise tag OR the transition tag. You cannot use both.
* The tag doesn't become "guaranteed" until that position group's FA period. If you trade/cut your franchise tagged player before his position group in FA, you can recoup full savings of the tag. If the player is moved after his position group in FA, you get half of the stars back.
Restricted Free Agents
You place a tender on all your RFA you want to keep. There are three levels of tenders depending on how much you value and want to keep your player. The tenders are:
1st Round: 4 stars
2nd Round: 3 stars
Original Round: 2 stars
There will be a specific period of time, 24 hours, where all we do is place bids on RFAs. Any team can bid on a RFA in this time period. You bid on the RFA by offering up a contract of X Stars (bid must be greater than the tender value). After the period, the player's current team then can decide to match the contract, which means he stays on his current team, but with a salary that was the bid. The team that tried to bid for him cannot counter offer.
If his current team doesn’t match the offer, the RFA signs for the bidding team at the contract bid for. That team then has to give up the draft pick that was tendered on the RFA.
UDFAs can have original round tenders, the original team just has the right to match the offer. If they decline to match the offer, they will receive no compensation.
Exclusive Rights Free Agents Exclusive rights Free agents cost 0.5 stars if you want to resign them. They cannot be bid on.
***DATE for RFA, ERFAs and Franchise Tag Tenders to be placed is: Friday, February 17th at 7 pm EST ***
Cutting Players
Go to SPOTRAC find a player’s salary for the 2017 year.
How to Navigate Spotrac Website:
§ Choose your team (ex. Baltimore Ravens)
§ Click heading “2017 Cap Hits” (Should look like THIS page)
§ Find your player (ex. Shareece Wright)
Cap Saved = Cap Hit - Dead Money
When you cut the player you Cap Saved = Cap Hit - Dead Money, your team incurs all signing and/or other bonuses as dead money to your cap if there is any.
Ex. Cutting Shareece Wright would mean you would save 2.5 stars
(5.33 cap hit - 2.67 dead money = 2.66 cap saved, rounded down to 2.5 stars)
*NOTE: Do not round until the very end. Use the whole cap hit and the whole dead money. Once the cap saved is calculated, round to the nearest 0.5 stars.
Once the cut player becomes a UFA, he is added to the Free Agency pool. Please try to make your cuts before our FA starts so we have an idea of the cut players available and can add them to the list of available FAs.
Please try and get cuts done before FA for that position. If a player is cut after the free agency period for their position, you will still have a chance to sign them, but will have to wait until the Final Free Agency after the draft.
WE WILL HAVE A THREAD FOR CUTS AND RE-SIGNINGS TO MAKE FA LISTS EASIER. PLEASE POST EVERY CUT AND RE-SIGNING IN THIS THREAD AS WELL AS YOUR STATE OF THE FRANCHISE POST.
In the format:
Team
Position and Player - stars saved
Example:
Baltimore Ravens
CB Shareece Wright – 2.5 stars
Special Cut/Trade Rule
Each team is allowed to make ONE CUT or TRADE in which the base salary only is factored and you can ignore the dead money. For example, cutting Joe Flacco would ADD cap due to dead money. Using this, his 6 star Base Salary is the cap savings instead of -23 stars in savings. Using this rule you can ignore the Dead Money and trade/cut him for the 6 stars. This can be applied retroactively to a move, but be smart about it.
Trades
Using previous blue link, if you trade away a player, you get extra stars based on the same formula used when you cut players. Cap Saved = Cap Hit - Dead Money. The team acquiring the player takes on the value of his Base Salary.
To complete a trade, both parties post in the trade thread the details of the trade (in the format that rmw10 wants).
Examples: (Numbers and players from a previous season):
Browns Give:
DT John Hughes (Browns save 0.5 stars, Jaguars add 0.5 stars)
Jaguars Give:
G Will Rackley (Jaguars save 1.5 stars, Browns add 1.5 stars)
Totals:
Browns: +1 star
Jaguars: -1 star
Bengals Give:
Round 6, Pick 23
Jaguars Give:
S Joe Lefeged (Jaguars save 0.5 stars, Bengals add 0.5 stars)
Totals:
Bengals: +0.5 stars
Jaguars: -0.5 stars
NOTE: When you trade draft picks, the draft pick cap hit is not included in the trade. It is already factored in when you keep track of all you draft picks.
Also, ALL PICKS MUST BE LISTED IN THE FORMAT: ROUND #, PICK #. Rmw10 will be keeping track of off this and it makes it easier on him. He will have a big board with all the draft picks listed, so please check that out when it is posted.
One person post the trade, and the other person needs to quote it and confirm.
Make sure after you decide on every cut and every trade is confirmed, edit you state of the franchise post (explained later).
How does Free Agency work?
Free Agency will begin on Monday, February 20th at 7PM EST. There will be one major Free Agency thread for each position or positional group. Below is the deadline schedule for positional free agency, along with the deadline for tenders:
Deadline to place all RFA, ERFA, franchise tag and transition tag tenders is Friday, February 17th at 7PM EST
1. RFA/ST - starts Monday 2/20, ends Tuesday 2/21
2. LB - starts Wednesday 2/22, ends Thursday 2/23
3. OL - starts Saturday 2/25, ends Sunday 2/26
4. DB - starts Monday 2/27, ends Tuesday 2/28
5. DL - starts Wednesday 3/1, ends Thursday 3/2
6. EDGE - starts Saturday 3/4, ends Sunday 3/5
7. RB/WR/TE - starts Monday 3/6, ends Tuesday 3/7
8. QB - starts Wednesday 3/8, ends Thursday 3/9
*All start and end times are 7 pm EST
There are 8 different free agent periods. They are listed above. The order of the free agency positions will be randomized (listed below in last year’s random order) and is still TBD (shown above is last year's order)
You will have 24 hours to place your bid. Once those 24 hours are up, no more bids can be placed. The Free Agency managers will sort through the winning bids to players at the end and give them to their new owners. Once that position is done, we will move onto the next day and so on.
Going through each position at a time will make it much easier to track who is available and who is gone.
We will then have a free for all of all the guys left for a day or two, once the draft is completed to fill out your roster.
Bidding on Free Agents:
If you win the bid you add that FA to your roster as of the 2017 season, don’t worry about the future.
Every GM has an idea on who they want and divvy up their budget according to this.
§ Team Name
§ Free Agent
§ Bid (# of stars)
Baltimore Ravens
OLB Von Miller
20 stars
***You can NOT bid on players if you do not have the free cap space available***
-You MUST create cap space first (by trading and/or cutting)
That’s for the first bid. Then if another team comes in and wants to bid, make sure and read through the thread, quote the highest bid so far (if it's a player already bid on) and make sure and post a bid higher. If the first team wants to counter bid, again quote the post (continue to use format above, Team name, Free agent, and stars bid).
We don’t want people not looking for the highest bid and then bidding 6 stars for say Von Miller, when someone has already bid 8.
Player names must be spelled correctly to be a valid bid.
FINAL FIVE MINUTES:
In order to give a fair chance to match bid––and to stop a sudden mass bidding in the final minute––we have a final five minutes rule.
With five minutes left, one of the “CoCo” will post that there are five minutes remaining in FA. If a player is bid on under five minutes, the team with the highest bid prior to the final five minutes will have an opportunity to get this player back in a “bid-off.”
In order to initiate this “bid-off,” the team that had the highest bid pre-final five minutes must state in the FA thread that they would like to do a “bid-off” WITHIN 15 MINUTES OF THE END OF FA. If you don’t say this, you don’t get final five rights. Simple as that.
Both parties––the team that owned the highest bid prior to the final five and the team with the highest bid at the end of FA––will PM their highest bid to a predetermined member. The highest bid wins, simple as that. If a tie results, it will be done again until we have a winner. FINAL BIDS MUST BE IN BY 7:30PM EST.
*NOTE: If you bid on a player in the final five, but don’t “win” him there, you can’t take part in this process. It is only for the owner prior to the final five and the owner at the end of FA. NEW FOR 2017: We are now able to add a 3rd team to the bid-off process. Teams can now enter this bid-off process for their own FAs if they did not win either the final 5 bid or the overall final bid. To do so, a team has to place a bid on their player at any point in the FA period. If a bid is placed, you are eligible to enter the bid-off for your former player. We will limit teams to using this option THREE times only. This is done in effort to give teams a better shot at retaining their own players.
GENERAL FA RULES:
Place ALL bids in the following format:
Team Name
Free Agent
Bid (# of Stars)
Absolutely NO discussions in the FA thread
NO discussion in the Cut Thread
Search for the leading bidder, quote their bid, and outbid them
Teams can bid any amount on a player, but only in increments of 0.5 Stars
Always quote the previous highest bid until the last 5 minutes
Editing or deleting of posts is NOT permitted, and has a penalty. You will not be allowed to make anymore bids for the next 15 minutes if you edit/delete a bid.
You can start the bidding at any price, the lowest value being 0.5 Stars
Bid based on what you wish to pay for the 2017 base salary only (No signing bonuses, etc.)
Teams are only allowed to sign 3 players at the same position for 0.5 stars in initial FA periods (doesn’t apply to FFA). For example, you can sign 3 WRs and 3 RBs at 0.5 stars in the RB/WR/TE period, but can’t go over 3. You can sign as many free agents as you want per position at more than 0.5 stars. With this, you are only allowed to have a max of three bids on players of the same position at 0.5 stars at a time. This guarantees you won't break the rules. If you happen to place a 4th, that bid will be ruled invalid and you may face punishment.
Free agents that are signed can be released afterwards, but you only get back half the cost. (Round up for cuts if they were at a .5 for the star. This means a player signed for 2.5 stars could be cut for savings of 1.5 stars, half of it is 1.25 which rounds up to 1.5 stars.) The only exception is players that were signed for 0.5 stars, who can be cut for the full 0.5 stars.
Draft
Once it comes around, a thread will be posted for the draft. The first post will be updated with all picks, as well as the big board.
Most importantly with the draft, there is a 12 hour time limit on each pick.
If you miss your pick, then the next person is up. If you have failed to make your pick by the time you come up again, then you are skipped. If you miss a pick, but eventually post it, you will have your time cut in half after the second skip and so on. Eventually you may be replaced.
If we believe you to be intentionally stalling, we reserve the right to skip your pick at our discretion.
NO discussion in this thread.
Post you pick by saying “With the ____ pick in the ___ round of the 2017 Forum Draft, the ____ select…
[picture]
(player)
In order to speed up the process, please forward your draft board to some other people and let them post the pick for you.
State of the Franchise Post
This year, the State of the Franchise post has moved to Google Docs, found HERE. The Google Doc is designed to all of the math for you, making it easier to do cap checks. We will be using the total active contracts as your starting point. We will need your email address in order to grant access to the document, so please send it to us via PM.
One of the more important notes is to please include and update the number of players on your roster, INCLUDING draft picks, at all times. This will ensure an accurate cap since you will receive a 0.5 star credit for every player over 51.
Below is an example of the document:
Make sure to update this after every transaction.
Rule of 51
In the offseason, the NFL follows the Rule of 51 for the salary cap. This means that only the top 51 contracts are taken into account. This rule applies for the game and will automatically updated via the spreadsheet.
Depth Chart
Simple. Post your standard depth chart in the thread when it is created.
*NOTE: ALL TEAMS MUST HAVE THEIR CORRECT SoF AND DEPTH CHART POSTED TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY PART OF THE GAME.
Threads:
We will have a general discussion thread. ALL discussion goes there.
We will have a thread for all official trades. NO discussion.
We will have a thread for all official cuts/re-signings. NO discussion.
We will have the State of the Franchise thread, to be updated after every transaction. NO discussion.
We will have a Depth Chart thread, to be updated after every transaction. NO discussion.
We will have a Big Board thread for the draft order. NO discussion.
We will have a Rules thread––as you may have figured out by now. NO discussion.
When FA begins we will have threads. NO discussion.
When the draft begins we will have a thread. NO discussion.
In the state of the franchise thread, big board thread, cut thread, depth chart thread, trade thread, draft thread and rules thread there is to be NO discussion. Basically, there will only be discussion in the discussion thread.
Breaking the Rules
If the “CoCo” determines that you have broken any rules, then you will be punished appropriately.
Punishments could vary from a warning, loss of cap space, loss of draft pick, etc. and even BANISHMENT FROM THE GAME.
We don’t want to punish anyone, but we will if he have to.
