Just to clarify a couple of things. I'm actually suggesting recreates don't get the DSFL deposit whatsoever. Or, at the very most, a minimal one. This is not about trying to curb any kind of advantages to being a recreate, but to incentivize larger contracts. Equipment here is more luxury than necessity, but weekly training is largely the opposite. We make it really, really easy between the $5m pay in DSFL, $4m send down cap, and Twitter payout for most players to never even have to think about find any other source of money as long as they don't buy equipment. Like a recreate with $10m in their bank probably wouldn't need to earn more than the odd media every few seasons to afford this. Maybe there are some larger problems at work there, though, and this could be treating a symptom rather than the cause.
As for rookie contracts, I did note (I thought) that if we re-do the minimum contract tiers and scale them, that any sort of standardization becomes mostly unnecessary. That being said, I tried to counter balance that by proposing 1) that the player's standard contract hit is held against the team's pro cap until they sign, which would hopefully force the issue for teams a little more, and 2) that any player who holds out in this scenario can continue to do all trainings, PTs, etc. You're right in that those probably still don't give players enough leverage in a player's league. I'd honestly even like something as simple as just enforcing a minimum total contract value by round. Like, "a first rounder must be paid at least $9m over the life of their rookie deal". A team could make that a one-year, $9m deal, a two-year deal that maybe goes 3/6, whatever. This would probably keep more leverage in the players' hands while still ensuring some baseline structure. You would of course either need to ban options (so teams don't backload and have a playeropt out) or make buyouts a thing and allow mutual options or something. I don't know. Really just spitballing here.
As for rookie contracts, I did note (I thought) that if we re-do the minimum contract tiers and scale them, that any sort of standardization becomes mostly unnecessary. That being said, I tried to counter balance that by proposing 1) that the player's standard contract hit is held against the team's pro cap until they sign, which would hopefully force the issue for teams a little more, and 2) that any player who holds out in this scenario can continue to do all trainings, PTs, etc. You're right in that those probably still don't give players enough leverage in a player's league. I'd honestly even like something as simple as just enforcing a minimum total contract value by round. Like, "a first rounder must be paid at least $9m over the life of their rookie deal". A team could make that a one-year, $9m deal, a two-year deal that maybe goes 3/6, whatever. This would probably keep more leverage in the players' hands while still ensuring some baseline structure. You would of course either need to ban options (so teams don't backload and have a playeropt out) or make buyouts a thing and allow mutual options or something. I don't know. Really just spitballing here.
![[Image: rq0K779.png]](https://i.imgur.com/rq0K779.png)
