*No Cap, The Cap

[iStegosauruz]

Introduction

If you didn’t see it, Joe announced that there’s a two times media event going right now to discuss ideas about how to improve the ISFL. Thats great because as everyone knows I’m dirt poor and appreciate the chance to ramble about things most people won’t fully read to earn more fake football league money.

The purpose of an introduction here, however, is to give a few regular disclaimers and some explanations. I’m going to be talking about my opinion on the ISFL salary cap. It is important to note that this is my personal opinion and not the opinion of the entirety of Head Office. We’re all individual people with individual agency and so I’m not going to try to attest to what their viewpoints on the situation are. I am a big fan of transparency, however, and since one of my jobs within Head Office is to handle the breakdown and tracking of the salary cap I thought it would be handy to give my perspective on it as a whole.

For a little more context, @excelsior wrote a really great piece on this the other day that outlines a lot of the basic details surrounding where money and TPE are currently. Definitely check it out.

Aight Cool, Disclaimers Done - On to the Basics

Right now the cap is set at $85,000,000 a season. Thats a pretty big chunk of change and amounts to teams being able to allocate $1,190,000,000 - yes $1.19 billion - to players over the course of a season. For the league to be in a healthy place the majority of players that want contracts need to be able to get contracts. I’ll hedge on the total number by saying “majority” for extreme situations - I’m absolutely not trying to imply we should restrict access from a player being in the league.

All of the players in the ISFL specifically need to be able to fit under that dollar value umbrella. With excelsior already have figured out the average TPE of a player in the league - 763 TPE - we can fairly easily calculate what an “average” full team would cost in the ISFL. I’ll define “full team” as a team that has every traditional starting spot filled and rosters at least two human offensive linemen, although many teams do roster more. That leaves you with needing, at minimum, 20 players on a team. Most teams run a third wide receiver and a second runningback at the very least so lets bump it up to 22 to try to encompass a few more players. For the remaining three offensive linemen I’m assuming teams purchase the typical Tier 3 offensive line bot which comes in at 550 TPE for $4.5M.

A 763 TPE player carries a $3M minimum contract value. To roster 22 players at that amount woud $66M - $19M below the total cap. If you add in the extra offensive linemen this “average” team would come in right at $79.5M. That’s still a full $5.5M below the cap which is enough to sign at least one more average player in the league and bring up two rookies on minimum deals or allocate towards other situations.

There are currently 336 players on ISFL rosters. If all of those players were the embodiment of the “average” player they would cost the league $1.08B to roster all of them. That comes in $110M under the total cap given to the league. Assuming 14 teams need to roster 3 OL at $13.5M total per team another $203M would be added to the current total which would bring the league to a running total of $1.283B allocated. That is $93M over the cap.

So we should raise the cap… right?

One of the most popular arguments I see for raising the cap is that when you break down the “average” we go over the currently allocated amount by a pretty significant figure. The problem with this argument is that we don’t live in an “average” league. We live in a league where players and teams routinely structure contracts so that they save the team money against the cap in the long term. For example, my player Colt Mendoza carries a $5M minimum contract valuation. I’m signed for $4M a season. Unless I opt out of my contract before I drop below 1K TPE I will never make $5M from my contract in a season. My contract is specifically structured like this to save New York $1M against the cap while I’m above 1K TPE. When I eventually regress below that value I have opt outs in my contract to opt out and take less - at which point I’d consistently be at my minimum.

There’s a legitimate argument that this tradition of essentially gaming the cap and having players take what ends up being below their assigned minimum is unhealthy for the league. I definitely recognize those concerns and I’ll address them below.

With the way contracts are structured we currently aren’t floating the “average” incidence of league contracts (i.e. $1.08B/$1.283B) in any given season. In fact, we’re floating below even $1B right now - minus OL bots. Every season to help determine where the league is “cap” wise I take the contract value every player has on the books for the following season - so for example this season I looked at what a player would be paid in S28 - and added them all to a spreadsheet. If a player doesn’t currently have a contract on the books for next season I’d calculate their regression if necessary and then assign them their minimum contract value based on that TPE. I do this for every player in the league over 100 TPE. If a player is in the DSFL right now they get added to the spreadsheet too. We don’t leave anyone out.

I’ll take that total figure - which for this season equaled $1.159B - and divide it amongst the 14 teams in the league. Spoiler, we get to about $82M per team with that step. What this basically shows is, excluding OL bots, we could call up and guarantee their current contract valuation, at least a minimum contract, to every player in the league over 100 TPE and come in under the overall cap. I then take that figure per team and add $23M to it, representing the (rounded up) value of a full slate (5) of T3 (550 TPE/4.5M) OL bots. When you do that the figure rises to right around $105M.

Oh no we’re overshooting the cap per team?! Wait, no we aren’t. We only ever get NEAR that figure if we guarantee a contract to every player who is over 100 TPE. This incudes DSFL senddowns who have exactly 100 TPE and wouldn’t be productive players in the ISFL because of that low TPE level and inactive ISFL free agents who haven’t been on a team in several seasons. We can give all of them contracts, guarantee the contract value everyone with a contract has on the books, and only come in $10M over after giving every team 5 T3 bot OL.

By the time you account for all of the IA FAs that won’t actually get contracts, the DSFL players who won’t be called up because they aren’t at a productive TPE level, and the OL bots that don’t need to be bought we drop like a rock and end up below that figure. Don’t believe me? You can check my work - I’ve also included the rough $ value each team is carrying on their books for next season. Every team who is slated to go over the cap can get below it by making a few roster moves, which normally entails letting a few extraneous IAs walk in FA.



For reference "adjusted" value is only including players over 250 TPE - so we fit under the cap better in that world which is probably more representative of what might happen. 

So…?

Basically what we run into here is that on the surface we shouldn’t raise the cap. The league fits nicely underneath it and although some teams will have to let some players walk this offseason that is true to life. Players leave NFL teams all the time due to the team not having enough money to retain their services. The bigger problems, however, are that the league is at a saturation point and that we’ve normalized taking minimum contracts. We’ve reached an era where yes, teams can get below the cap by letting a few extraneous (i.e. an IA RB3) players walk in free agency, however we don’t have the space to call players up.

That’s always the next argument - raise the cap so we have enough money to call our rookies up and can afford not giving players minimum contracts.

Rookies should absolutely get a shot at playing in the ISFL and we don’t need to normalize being a senddown, especially for more than one season, in my mind. The problem is I’m not sure raising the cap actually means we get more rookies called up. In a lot of situations I think raising the cap actually just means teams will try to squeeze one more max contract onto their books in an attempt to win a championship. The same goes for paying players more - how often do we think a team will seriously overpay a free agent to get them onto their team? It happens every so often - Darrell Williams is making $3.5M over his minimum value for the Philadelphia Liberty this season - however it isn’t common. If we raise the cap for these two things to happen and they don’t happen or only half the teams respect that we raised the cap for those purposes we risk allowing super teams to form. That’s a major downside to any cap raise.

So whats the solution?

I think we need be focused on two things as a league:
1. Reducing the stigma around “minimum contracts”
2. Ensuring rookies have places to play and aren’t sent down repeatedly.

The first of those things is much more complicated than the second in my mind. Reducing the “stigma” around minimum contracts implies motivating players to take more than the minimum. In a league where its as easy as it is to make money I’m not sure we ever get to that point. What we can do is increase the minimum contract scale with any cap increase. Not enough to overshadow the increase in the cap but just enough to make players a bit more expensive. There’s a give and take there and we’d have to find the midpoint between the two ideas.

I think we should also institute a rookie pay scale that isn’t just bringing them up on $1M a season minimum deals. If you want to call a rookie up you should have to pay them a fair wage - and yes their TPE may not be the highest but typically rookies are players who have yet to ingrain themselves as much in the league as a veteran and may not have a $50M+ bank account to fall back on. To this end, paying ISFL rookies $4M if they’re sent down works, but the contract value they receive when they get called up needs to scale by how many years they’ve been in the league or it just needs to be a flat rate that is higher than $1M.

If we’re paying rookies more we’re going to run into issues with teams wanting to call them up. Right now if you can squeeze $1M onto your books and your rookie is okay playing 4 snaps a game you might as well call them up. If they suddenly cost less than that they aren’t going to end up being called up. To ensure teams have the cap space to call players up and there are enough spots in the league for those players to get playing time we have to redistribute talent across the league.

So… expansion?

Lets assume that if the league expands anytime soon it’ll provide each team with the regular 7 protection slots for non-rookie players and have each team lose 2 players in an expansion draft. Can the teams in the league as they're currently constructed support this? The most simplistic way to approach it is to look at who is sent down for each team.

Arizona Outlaws
S26 LB Logan Sarrasin 469 TPE
S27 DT Fergus Callaghan Jr. 329 TPE

They also have S27 Kicker Cade York in the DSFL who is about to cap. We’re headed towards a world where a 500 TPE LB is going to struggle to get playing time because of who is ahead of him on the depth chart. There’s a high chance he gets sent down again.

Austin Copperheads
S26 K/P Glueteus Maxium 323 TPE
S27 DT Candice D. Fitinyomouf 315 TPE

Baltimore Hawks
Baltimore has plenty of cap space to call their rookies up. In a world with expansion looming they could protect most active players with their seven protection slots.

Berlin Fire Salamanders
S26 WR Schumi Hulkenvettel 320 TPE
S27 DT Marlon Brando 379 TPE

Chicago Butchers
S25 CB James Gath 379 TPE
S26 S Evan Jones 404 TPE
S27 RB Madison Hayes 374 TPE
S27 LB Devonte Cook 349 TPE
S27 CB HeHateMe PickSix II 400 TPE

Colorado Yeti
S27 RB Drip Dad 278 TPE
S27 S SparkySpark Boom-man

Honolulu Hahalua
S26 RB Sirdsvaldis Miglaskems 250 TPE
S26 WR Lalo Salamanca 419 TPE
S27 QB Joliet Christ Jr. 355 TPE
S27 CB Jason Bradshaw 291 TPE

New Orleans Second Line
S26 S Jonathan Suffleboard 412 TPE
S27 LB Kevin Morrison 285 TPE
S27 CB Buck Nekkid 253 TPE

New York Silverbacks
S26 DT Primo Berto 257 TPE

Orange County Otters
S26 OL Maiteers Rico-Shea 348 TPE
S27 DE Bean Beanman 356 TPE

Philadelphia Liberty
S26 QB Ryan Negs 520 TPE
S26 RB Xander Creed 355 TPE
S27 WR Tsuyu Asui 398 TPE
S27 TE Borgo San Lorenzo 373 TPE

Sarasota Sailfish
S26 QB Lebron James III 471 TPE
S26 RB Big Chungus 255 TPE
S26 WR Quavious McGrady 255 TPE
S27 RB Giovanni Bianchi 293 TPE
S27 WR Joseph Radetzky 336 TPE

San Jose Sabercats
S27 LB Duke Cheeks 376 TPE

Yellowknife Wraiths
S25 LB Donald McBobby 429 TPE
S27 CB Kita Chiasa 323 TPE

All but two teams in the league - San Jose and New York - could lose two players in an expansion draft and have replacements for them immediately from the DSFL. With 336 players across the 14 teams in the league each team has 24 players on roster currently which is already 2 more than the “full” team we defined early. We’re living in a world where players with close to 500 TPE - that aren’t QBs mind you - are being sent down for a second straight year because their team can’t find a place to play them and that problem is only going to continue until we open up more slots for these players to play.

Even with retirements we have 35 fully capped, active send downs in the DSFL. That isn't normal. And we have an entire new rookie class heading towards an ISFL draft in a few weeks. We could cover the potential retirements, although there is a threat S22 doesn't recreate at the rate some people believe it will. But even if just the 50+ S22 players who are active, earning, and over 1K TPE recreate we can literally still fill 2 teams with them. 

This doesn’t even begin to include the 11 S28 players that are over 215 TPE and on pace to cap by their ISFL draft. There are currently 26 S28 players over 200 TPE. They’re all probably looking at being sent down. Comparatively from S22? 54 players were immediate call-ups. S23? 18. S24? 5. S25? 29. S26? 10. S27? 4. Do we think we’ll have 4 this year? I’d honestly be kinda shocked.

Now, we could always decide to refocus the league a bit and make it more of a “spend ages in the minors” type of league - which some sim leagues do well - but that pushes the league from being “casual” and into more of a serious, veteran league in my opinion. Just historically from data I have too, we have less retention in the long term when players spend more time in the DSFL, especially when its not by choice.

I’ll give a nod to the risk of expansion is DSFL contraction. That’s always a risk but we shouldn’t be prioritizing keeping players in the DSFL for longer and not giving them shots at the pros purely because we might lose two teams in the minors.

The Big Point

1. Institute a rookie pay scale so we can get our newest members a bit more money.
2. Expand the league so we can actually get those rookies into the big leagues.
3. Raise the minimum contract limits.
4. Raise the cap in conjunction with both the above actions - a slight bit more than the squeeze that those actions will put on the cap - to open up more space for teams to operate without just flooding them with the ability to build super teams.

The cap is designed to force some level of competitive balance. Its designed to make teams have to make tough financial decisions and ensure there is some free agency - that players HAVE to move around at a certain point. We’re slowly reaching the point where they can’t move around because no one has cap, however just flat raising the cap doesn’t ensure that the problems are fixed. If we’re going to raise the cap its got to come with other policy changes that make sure we’re forcing the change in the direction we want it to go - maybe not all the way but at least part of the way. My biggest fear with cap raises is that instead of seeing the money go to rookies or to call them up that we're just going to see a handful of teams throw more money at vets to try to ring chase and the problem we have where 11 teams are close to the cap and 3 have literal treasure troves worth of cap space will only increase. If you ensure some of that money is going to rookies and take players away from teams so they have to call up rookies while also raising the amount of money any new free agent would demand - so that rookies are still a comparably affordable option - we can accomplish all of it. 

Kinda wrote this on the fly and its a bit rambly but its meant to be a bit more of a discussion thing. As always these are just my views, not the entire views of Head Office.

[manicmav36]

I've said it once and I'll say it before, the biggest hurdle to expansion is ensuring we have enough new players coming in each season to replace ones that are lost. Our last r/NFL class (that usually holds us over for 2 or more seasons) wasn't able to do that. Expand beyond what we can maintain and we have to contract some teams. Which is near the top of the list of bad things that could happen to the league.

Love the deep dive on this stuff though.

[iStegosauruz]

I've said it once and I'll say it before, the biggest hurdle to expansion is ensuring we have enough new players coming in each season to replace ones that are lost. Our last r/NFL class (that usually holds us over for 2 or more seasons) wasn't able to do that. Expand beyond what we can maintain and we have to contract some teams. Which is near the top of the list of bad things that could happen to the league.

Love the deep dive on this stuff though.

Yeah I even tried to steer clear of saying like we have to do it this season, next, etc. My bigger thing is there has to be some type of policy to ensure the money goes to rookies being called up and the biggest hurdle to doing that at least in the absolute status quo is over-saturation of rosters. If rosters become less saturated at any point in the future due to lower creation rates, etc. we solve that problem. 

Just right now I don't think a flat raise - which some people are clamoring for - solves any problem besides letting more of the same teams consolidate more talent.

[124715]

The easy way to make people ask for bigger contracts is to make a few bank items purchasable with only contract money. If you enjoy watching the world burn, this could be extra TPE, a regression reducer, or some carryover TPE. Otherwise, you could restrict an existing option, such as a position switch, an archetype switch, or TPE redistribution. I'm not ready for the chaos either of those categories would unleash but it would certainly end the minimum contract frenzy.

[Swanty]

The easy way to make people ask for bigger contracts is to make a few bank items purchasable with only contract money. If you enjoy watching the world burn, this could be extra TPE, a regression reducer, or some carryover TPE. Otherwise, you could restrict an existing option, such as a position switch, an archetype switch, or TPE redistribution. I'm not ready for the chaos either of those categories would unleash but it would certainly end the minimum contract frenzy.

T7 equipment - 35 TPE - $50M

[excelsior]

I like to think this is what my article would resemble if I wasn’t so lazy

Great work as always steg

[124715]

The easy way to make people ask for bigger contracts is to make a few bank items purchasable with only contract money. If you enjoy watching the world burn, this could be extra TPE, a regression reducer, or some carryover TPE. Otherwise, you could restrict an existing option, such as a position switch, an archetype switch, or TPE redistribution. I'm not ready for the chaos either of those categories would unleash but it would certainly end the minimum contract frenzy.

T7 equipment - 35 TPE - $50M

Thanks, I hate it

ISFL users on their way to buy 5 TPE for $36.5M:

[Opera_Phantom]

The easy way to make people ask for bigger contracts is to make a few bank items purchasable with only contract money. If you enjoy watching the world burn, this could be extra TPE, a regression reducer, or some carryover TPE. Otherwise, you could restrict an existing option, such as a position switch, an archetype switch, or TPE redistribution. I'm not ready for the chaos either of those categories would unleash but it would certainly end the minimum contract frenzy.

That would completely change the league. One of the good things here is that if you wanna spend some more time doing media/gfx for example, you can easily get money to be able to buy stuff for as long as you want and then just coast until you need money again.

Carryover TPE i also don't like, the best part of getting here is that you can pretty much be on par with everyone starting at the same time as you do. Even the fact that you can start earning after the trade deadline should be changed imo. There's no need for it, just create a certain day for every rookie to start earning and that's it. I enjoy parity.

[excelsior]

I think HO needs to definitely expand + raise cap + restructure minimums pretty soon, preferably next season, and all 3 at once. I’ll try and singlehandedly change the stigma surrounding minimums by asking for 8m a year, I’m sure my GMs will appreciate that

[Pat]

I don't really know if there's a stigma around signing minimum contracts. I think the majority of users are in the mindset of, "I want to help the team!"

Does that skew things in favor of the teams and GMs? Absolutely. At the same time though, if you're having fun why wouldn't you want to do what you can to hang out with your friends.

I do think we have a stigma here around the general idea of player movement; but, that's neither here nor there.