Hello NSFL,
Recently there was a hiccup where the user @Mark D was signed as an inactive player by the Arizona Outlaws, attempted to decline the contract, and was later signed by the Colorado Yeti as a free agent signing.
For full understanding of this issue let’s look at some context/precedence:
Oct 3, 2018: Colorado Yeti sign a bunch of inactives as normal, including Andre Bly Jr (@sapp2013). Sapp was legally an inactive player at the time of the signing
Oct 4, 2018: Sapp2013 attempts to decline the contract (seen in this thread). Up until this point, no inactive had ever came back and tried to decline an inactive contract (especially within 24 hours of it being posted).
GMs talked about it and it was quickly and essentially unanimously decided amongst GMs that inactives should NOT be allowed to decline an inactive contract. You can see in that thread where @dropbear stated this, saying “Too late, we worked out that IA contracts can’t be declined lol”. There was no official announcement about this rule, it was just decided on the fly.
So there’s the historic precedence of users not being allowed to decline an inactive contract.
That off-season (so before the S12 season), during the annual GM rule proposals/voting session, there was a rule proposed that would allow a user signed to an inactive contract to decline the contract within 48 hours of it being posted. The exact wording was “A player may reject an inactive contract posted for their own player within 48 hours of it being posted.” This rule proposal failed, and only a single NSFL team voted in favor of it.
So now we have both historic precedence and explicit rejection of a rule which would have allowed users to decline inactive contracts.
Fast forward to more recently. Here’s a timeline:
Jan 17, 2019: Arizona Outlaws sign @Mark D to an inactive contract (he was legally inactive at this time, having gone 22 days without posting on the forum)
Jan 18, 2019: Mark D attempts to decline his inactive contract. (Link to thread). The Outlaws GM @run_CMC then stated he would reach out to him about signing a new contract.
Teams are indeed allowed to “tweak” inactive contracts should the user return. This happened with @Ramero and the Orange County Otters previously. Mark D was under contract with the Outlaws, and the Outlaws were now reaching out to talk about a new contract.
That same day and the following day, a two other NSFL teams (including the Yeti) reached out to Mark D, seeing that he had declined his contract and believing he was now a free agent. It’s apparent that these teams either didn’t realize Mark D was signed as an inactive player and thus couldn’t decline his contract, or had forgotten about the previous precedence that users cannot decline inactive contracts.
Mark D didn’t respond to the Outlaw’s message, but he was indeed under contract with them as per precedence and the rules.
Jan 23, 2019: The Colorado Yeti posted that they were now signing Mark D (Thread here). Up until this day Mark D had been absent on the forums and only responded to the Outlaw’s message on this day to let them know that he was going to the Yeti.
So this is the exact same situation as the previous one regarding @sapp2013, except teams reached out to the user and one went so far as to agree to a contract with them, even though we had both precedence and a tangible rule that users cannot decline inactive contracts (as voted by the GMs).
HO has talked about this situation and we are making the following rulings / clarifications:
1. @Mark D’s rights are owned by the Arizona Outlaws under the contract initially posted on Jan 17 (S13: $2m). He unfortunately cannot decline this inactive contract as per precedence and the rule.
2. While the Yeti and other team (Orange County Otters) that reached out to Mark D after his attempted declining of his contract is indeed tampering (you cannot reach out to another team’s player to talk about contracts), because of the obvious widespread confusion about this inactive contract rule, HO has decided not to punish either team for tampering in this case but has issued warnings to both teams.
3. In order to prevent anything like this from happening again, we are instituting the following rule effective immediately:
Users have 48 hours to decline an inactive contract. Inactive contract postings MUST tag the inactive user
Additionally, any teams reaching out to inactive players whose rights are owned by another team (including inactives who are impending free agents, just got signed to a contract and are within that 48-hour window, etc.) is indeed considered tampering.
Thanks,
HO
Recently there was a hiccup where the user @Mark D was signed as an inactive player by the Arizona Outlaws, attempted to decline the contract, and was later signed by the Colorado Yeti as a free agent signing.
For full understanding of this issue let’s look at some context/precedence:
Oct 3, 2018: Colorado Yeti sign a bunch of inactives as normal, including Andre Bly Jr (@sapp2013). Sapp was legally an inactive player at the time of the signing
Oct 4, 2018: Sapp2013 attempts to decline the contract (seen in this thread). Up until this point, no inactive had ever came back and tried to decline an inactive contract (especially within 24 hours of it being posted).
GMs talked about it and it was quickly and essentially unanimously decided amongst GMs that inactives should NOT be allowed to decline an inactive contract. You can see in that thread where @dropbear stated this, saying “Too late, we worked out that IA contracts can’t be declined lol”. There was no official announcement about this rule, it was just decided on the fly.
So there’s the historic precedence of users not being allowed to decline an inactive contract.
That off-season (so before the S12 season), during the annual GM rule proposals/voting session, there was a rule proposed that would allow a user signed to an inactive contract to decline the contract within 48 hours of it being posted. The exact wording was “A player may reject an inactive contract posted for their own player within 48 hours of it being posted.” This rule proposal failed, and only a single NSFL team voted in favor of it.
So now we have both historic precedence and explicit rejection of a rule which would have allowed users to decline inactive contracts.
Fast forward to more recently. Here’s a timeline:
Jan 17, 2019: Arizona Outlaws sign @Mark D to an inactive contract (he was legally inactive at this time, having gone 22 days without posting on the forum)
Jan 18, 2019: Mark D attempts to decline his inactive contract. (Link to thread). The Outlaws GM @run_CMC then stated he would reach out to him about signing a new contract.
Teams are indeed allowed to “tweak” inactive contracts should the user return. This happened with @Ramero and the Orange County Otters previously. Mark D was under contract with the Outlaws, and the Outlaws were now reaching out to talk about a new contract.
That same day and the following day, a two other NSFL teams (including the Yeti) reached out to Mark D, seeing that he had declined his contract and believing he was now a free agent. It’s apparent that these teams either didn’t realize Mark D was signed as an inactive player and thus couldn’t decline his contract, or had forgotten about the previous precedence that users cannot decline inactive contracts.
Mark D didn’t respond to the Outlaw’s message, but he was indeed under contract with them as per precedence and the rules.
Jan 23, 2019: The Colorado Yeti posted that they were now signing Mark D (Thread here). Up until this day Mark D had been absent on the forums and only responded to the Outlaw’s message on this day to let them know that he was going to the Yeti.
So this is the exact same situation as the previous one regarding @sapp2013, except teams reached out to the user and one went so far as to agree to a contract with them, even though we had both precedence and a tangible rule that users cannot decline inactive contracts (as voted by the GMs).
HO has talked about this situation and we are making the following rulings / clarifications:
1. @Mark D’s rights are owned by the Arizona Outlaws under the contract initially posted on Jan 17 (S13: $2m). He unfortunately cannot decline this inactive contract as per precedence and the rule.
2. While the Yeti and other team (Orange County Otters) that reached out to Mark D after his attempted declining of his contract is indeed tampering (you cannot reach out to another team’s player to talk about contracts), because of the obvious widespread confusion about this inactive contract rule, HO has decided not to punish either team for tampering in this case but has issued warnings to both teams.
3. In order to prevent anything like this from happening again, we are instituting the following rule effective immediately:
Users have 48 hours to decline an inactive contract. Inactive contract postings MUST tag the inactive user
Additionally, any teams reaching out to inactive players whose rights are owned by another team (including inactives who are impending free agents, just got signed to a contract and are within that 48-hour window, etc.) is indeed considered tampering.
Thanks,
HO
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