2015 Forum Mock: Rules Thread

[Mt. Crushmore]

** PLEASE DO NOT POST IN THIS THREAD **

2015 Forum Mock Council of Commissioners (“CoCo”):

These seven members are running the game.  If you have any questions, please send them towards these members.  Please note that certain members have certain responsibilities, which makes them better equipped to answer certain questions.

arnie_uk

berad: rules enforcer/moderator

Mt. Crushmore: cuts/re-signings

ravensdan

rmw10: trades/draft

-Truth-

T3hRaven

52520Andrew: salary cap

Rules for the game are as follows:

- The 2014 Mock Draft Salary Cap shall be set at 143 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 soon after the completion of the Super Bowl.  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.

Draft value:

You have to leave 5.5 stars for the normal draft, 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 Browns have an extra first round pick acquired from the Browns. Therefore, their draft class will need 7.5 stars instead of 5.5 stars. If they acquired other picks or trade away picks, the number of stars will change accordingly.

TENDERING

Franchise Tag costs:

QB: 15 stars

RB: 8.5 stars

WR: 11 stars

TE: 6 stars

OL: 10 stars

DE: 11.5 stars

DT: 9 stars

LB: 10 stars

CB: 11.5 stars

S: 7.5 stars

K/P: 3 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 having a super-high tag value due to rookie contract will be implemented as well

 

Restricted Free Agents

You place a tender on all your RFA you want to keep. There are three levels of tender depending on how much you value and want to keep your player. The tenders are:

1st Round: 3 stars

2nd Round: 2 stars

Original Round: 1.5 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. 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: Sunday, February 8th, 2015***

Cutting Players

Go to SPOTRAC find a player’s salary for the 2015 year.

How to Navigate Spotrac Website:

§ Choose your team (ex. Baltimore Ravens)

§ Click heading “2015 Cap Hits” (Should look like THIS page)

§ Find your player (ex. Haloti Ngata)

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 Haloti Ngata would mean you would save 8.5 stars

(16 cap hit - 7.5 dead money = 8.5 cap saved)

*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.

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

DT Haloti Ngata – 8.5 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 Eugene Monroe would ADD cap due to dead money. Using this, his 5.5 star Base Salary is the cap savings instead of negative 7.5 stars in savings. Using this rule you can ignore the Dead Money and still cut him for the 5.5 stars.

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 last 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 (Originally from Cincinnati)

Jaguars Give:

S Joe Lefeged (Jaguars save 0.5 stars, Bengals add 0.5 stars)

Totals:

Bengals: +0.5 stars

Jaguars: -0.5 stars

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 #.  Also, please list who originally owned the 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 Tuesday, February 10th, 2015. 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 RFA/ERFA schedule:

 

Sunday 02/08 all RFA and ERFA tenders deadline
Monday 02/09 RFA bidding

RFAs/Quarterbacks - starts Monday 2/9 at 7pm EST, ends Tuesday 2/10 at 7pm EST

Special Teams - starts Wednesday 2/11 at 7pm EST, ends Thursday 2/12 at 7pm EST

Linebackers - starts Saturday 2/14 at 7pm EST, ends Sunday 2/15 at 7pm EST

Defensive Backs - starts Monday 2/16 at 7pm EST, ends Tuesday at 7pm EST

Offensive Line - starts Wednesday 2/18 at 7pm EST, ends Thursday 2/19 at 7pm EST

Backs/Receivers/Tight Ends - starts Saturday 2/21 at 7pm EST, ends Sunday 2/22 at 7pm EST

Edge Defenders - starts Monday 2/23 at 7pm EST, ends Tuesday 2/24 at 7pm EST

Defensive Line - starts Wednesday 2/25 at 7pm EST, end Thursday 2/26 at 7pm EST

 

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 2014 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 Justin Houston

13 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 its 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 mil for say Justin Houston, when someone has already bid 8.

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 saw 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.

*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.

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 2014 base salary only (No signing bonuses)

 

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.

NO discussion in this thread.

Post you pick by saying “With the ____ pick in the ___ round of the 2015 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

There is a separate thread for your state of the franchise.  Please follow the format of the original poster (likely Mt. Crushmore).

Make sure and Update this after every transaction.

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 too 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.