*Why being nice is ruining league parity

[nunccoepi]

I like this article but also disagree in a few areas.

In some circles, I've been pretty vocal about how position change rules are killing strategy, drafting, and the free agent market. For the most part, position changes have calmed down a bit, but it still irks me when a DL changes to a QB. Imagine the drafting or the free agent drama that would be involved if two or three teams really needed a certain position. It would be fun. But people are too nice and will change positions willy nilly.

I actually completely agree with this. It bothered me a bit when Swag's Andrew Reese kept switching back and forth between a DT and QB. I don't want less positions switches overall (and I haven't been active in the last over a period of a couple months to see how prevalent switches are now), but I would be all about limiting position switches to realistic options. And that would just be something that users would have to take into account when they create their players. The only exception I would make is for first time creates. Let them switch to whatever to keep up their interest. But I would impose the harsher restrictions on recreates who should be able to plan better.

Which brings me to my bone to pick. People are too nice during contract negotiations. Recently we've seen some free agents command some big money. And I love it. Logan Uchicha grabbing 10 million dollars a year is awesome. It makes teams think about their future cap. It makes some interesting trades go down. It's fun.

Yeah I mostly agree with this too. HO sets cap limits based on what they roughly believe to be achievable, so their actually is a limit on the amount of money that can be dished out. But I don't think we've come too close to it considering how much cap room the OL bots afford us. Which leads me to my next point...

Now not to knock the Orange County Otters, they are the dynasty every other team wishes they could be, but do you think they have this many championships if their players were actually paid fairly? They have Defensive Player of the Year Lanzer Grievous (an over 1000 TPE LB) making 4 million dollars for the next couple of seasons. Most teams are paying their inactive OL bots more. But nobody thinks twice about it.

I get what you're saying, but OCO has actually historically paid their players really well. You can't complain about a team giving its players contracts that are too small and then also say they don't pay enough for their OL bots. OL bots are bought after contracts are finalized because whatever left over money there is goes to the bots. So that's why OCO has had such bad OL bots--because they pay their players well. Better to get upset about teams that don't pay their players well and consistently have maxed out OL (unless they get a lot of cap in trades, like my BAL team did).

I shouldn't be super upset about it. I spent an entire Cameron Taylor career making close to minimum. But as I neared CT's retirement, all I could think of was the lack of championship rings and the lack of money. Off seasons were boring because my contract was almost pre-destined. So minimum contracts and OCO aren't necessarily the ultimate evil.

I get it. That's why I'm going to be playing with my next player a little different. Other than my rookie contract with L'Alto I always had min. But this next one will be a bit more costly.

1) Minimum in their prime on their second team. If you're going to hit the free agent market, cool. Get paid for what you're worth. Bex is HO and a great LR presence. She should get paid for it. I get it, NOLA is cool and fun. But it's not helping the rest of the league when top S18 players (wink wink Ironside) are taking minimums so they can construct a super team.

2) My main bone to pick is opting out of a 5 million dollar contract to re-sign with the same team for a 3 million dollar minimum in her prime. No explanation needed.

. . . There is no reason a player with an option would opt out for less money on the same team.

I don't really know Bex well and I don't remember her contract, but --no offense--I don't think those are great reasons. Taking minimum contracts and exercising options to restructure contracts happen all the time in real life. And generally its to benefit the team. So it makes sense that team players would go for it. In fact, that's often how GMs do their contracts, so they're always getting paid minimum.

I think we just need a balance between team players and players who are more interested in money and ring chasing. There's room for both in my opinion.

[nunccoepi]

EDIT: Just to be clear, this is something that gets discussed A LOT behind the scenes. FAs are often more likely to sign for smaller deals (if not min) to be part of a winning team while less competitive teams have thrown out ridiculously massive offers just to get scoffed at. This isn't like the NFL where someone will sign with the Bucs pver the Pats just for a few extra million dollars. And unfortunately, any attempt to enforce the appeal of a larger deal (such as a 50% increase to resign with your old team once FA starts) removes player choice, which usually hurts user retention.

Really agree with all of this. And it comes down to FAs valuing rings over money because they can often get money elsewhere.

PS Sorry I said Reese annoyed me.

[slothfacekilla]

Maybe it is silly but I am always going to take a minimum contract to make room for more players. These sim leagues for me are about the friends I make and interacting with them for the most part. We basically have an entirely active roster in NOLA, which I'm really proud of, and I love the group we have. If I demanded big money on my extension there's no way we could have fit everyone in, so making money through my new job, twitter, etc. is a good trade off for me. I guess you could say that's being too nice to the team but it helps me enjoy the league so I'm fine with it.

[bex]

The contract that kind of prompted this media piece is Bex's contract. I really really disliked that contract for a couple reasons.

1) Minimum in their prime on their second team. If you're going to hit the free agent market, cool. Get paid for what you're worth. Bex is HO and a great LR presence. She should get paid for it. I get it, NOLA is cool and fun. But it's not helping the rest of the league when top S18 players (wink wink Ironside) are taking minimums so they can construct a super team.

2) My main bone to pick is opting out of a 5 million dollar contract to re-sign with the same team for a 3 million dollar minimum in her prime. No explanation needed.


Again I don't mean to pick on anyone. This is just a recent example of how lax people have been on their contracts. I've seen it for 15 seasons now. Let's get greedy people. It will make the league more competitive.

Don't hate me Bex.

Let's talk about this really quickly. Set the record straight a bit. I don't hate you, and I think this is a really important conversation to be having.

Others are mentioninng it, but 100% I do not need the full contract money. I'm HO. I'm commish now for Gimmy's sake! I make bank in the league without taking contract money.

I did not re-sign for minumum. I signed for one mil over my minimum. Because honestly? I agree with you. I hate minimums. I think the willingness to just settle for min is terrible for the league. There's a reason I made 5 mil a season as a breakout star in the league. Because I wanted to get paid for what I bring to a team and make GMs make hard choices.

So why did I do it then? Why take a pay cut like that?
Because I see my team members who took less contract money to be a part of the team and I wanted to make sure that they knew that the team cared about them. That they deserve the money just as much if not more than someone who's lucked into being the popular kid. NOLA exercised the option to release me into FA, because my leaving and coming back was 100% about the team and not about me.

TL;DR I didn't re-sign for a min, mins are bullshit, absolutely get greedy

[IsaStarcrossed]

I love that you call out specific people when more than 75%+ of the league takes minimum or within 1m of minimum contracts. YKW's 16 of their 18 players are within 1m of minimum. 18 of 21 of OCO's. 20 of 20 of Colorado's. 18 of 20 of Baltimore's. You get the point. Of those, I'd say 10-12 are even below minimum because they've actually outgrown their minimums since they signed their contracts. Maybe only another 10-12 signed that 1m over the minimum. The point is, everyone take minimum or near it because money is pointless in this league. What matters for some is being competitive. What matters for others is stats. What matters for even more is being on teams they actually enjoy being on. Nothing you can really do with the cap or purchases will motivate people beyond their own personal goals they have in this game, whatever those goals may be. Money is pointless because at the end of the day, its a game. We play this game to have fun, to find enjoyment. You start taking away player choice by forcing them to make decisions they don't want to make, the game stops being fun. That's how you push people away and cause them to go inactive. Just my opinion on the situation.

[JKortesi81]

Anyone who's a regular that has heard a Joe K NSFL Podcast has absolutely heard me bitch about position switches that aren't realistic. For instance, there's zero way a Kicker or a DE should become a QB. LB to S? Sure. QB to WR? Sure.

We need realism in that sense.

We have a ton of rookies incoming though, and not a ton of space for all of them.

Expansion (get used to hearing that word, it's coming) is going to help a bit, but we need to get a set list of rules for "okay" position changes.

[SabaDonutMan]

. I've never been one to pay FAs $10 mil

Cough Cough 24m Cough Cough

[DeadlyPlayer]

I'm just here to watch *grabs lawn chair and popcorn*

[Jay_Doctor]

The position switching makes sense. There are only certain transitions that would remotely make sense. Most of the rest I disagree with. I would take less money any day to be with people who A: took the time to scout me and B: match with what I'm looking for. Pretty simple.

[SwagSloth]

Cough Cough 24m Cough Cough