I revised this rule to address one of the concerns brought up by the league.
Impacted Rules: 13.0, 13.1
Proposed Change: 13.0 – CUT DOWN DATE After the conclusion of the season and prior to the next season's drafts, the Commissioner will set a Cut Down Date wherein rosters are trimmed to abide by an off-season salary cap of $80 million.
13.1 - A team must protect a minimum of twenty-two players from the previous season at a total combined salary of not more than $80 million.
Explanation: I propose changing the $70 million cut down date salary cap to $80 million. NFL teams do not have to be under a certain number below the cap before free agency/draft, and I don't think we should either. Moving it to $80 million guarantees teams will have enough money left for the free agent draft, yet gives KRFL teams financial flexibility. No NFL team who is under the cap would release a player they would want to keep to get under a secondary cap, yet this rule forces us to do that. If a team wants to enter the draft with very little money (enough to be able to draft a full squad), I don't see a reason to stop them.
The $70m cut down date salary cap has two purposes:
1) It aims to increase parity by making more free agents available and 2) It ensures that a team has enough salary cap money to fill their 52 man roster at the conclusion of the FA Draft.
After the Cut Down Date, there is an implicit Salary Cap demanded by the difference between the number of players (and their salaries) under contract and the remaining players needed to fill the roster. For example, if a team retains 22 players but still needs to draft 30, the cheapest way they could do that would be by drafting 30 players at $100k each. That means they would need at least $3m in cap space before the FA Draft. That makes a pre-draft salary cap of at least $80m necessary in that scenario. We can tinker with the pre-draft salary cap limit, but we can't eliminate it. My thought is that the $70m limit has worked very well and that the proposed alternative could be a bookkeeping problem.
Salem has amended the original proposal in case the subsequent posts don't make sense. After the edit, it seems to me that this boils down to one issue: Does the Cut Down Date salary cap of $70m increase parity by making more free agents available? I'm a believer in the NFL model of competitive parity and am skeptical of anything that could work against the upward mobility of the below average teams in the league. (I was against Franchising Players). The $70m salary cap has worked for a long time so before we tinker with it we should ask whether the advantages to the individual franchise proposed might make it harder for the lesser teams to get better. Also, and this shouldn't be a reason to be against the proposal if it improves the league, having to have a possible 30 $.100m rounds would be an administrative pain in the.
I am a believer in making the league as realistic as possible. That is why I love playing in this league, it comes as close to experiencing what it is like being a real GM/owner. So I am in favor of any rule that makes it even more realistic. An artificial cap that is not the real cap does not exist.
I also think it will not impact parity much, if at all. The amount of players that turnover year after year is huge. I think it is extremely easy for a team to turn things around very quickly, given the rules we have.
This is all very interesting. Your right about the amount of players that turn over, but I have noticed that the quality of those players have gone down a bit. I think it's because of the rigorous trading that goes on and the planning. I understand wanting to be like the NFL and wanting to have a competitive league ( parity ). The NFL also creates a new schedule every year designed to encourage parity. Do we? Jerry Jones would like there not to be any cap. It's tuff when a GM has to decide between what player to keep based upon a cap, but I think this " arbitrary" rule has worked for a while and will continue to.
As a matter of fact, we do have a schedule every year that encourages parity!
And things will work well with the 'arbitrary' cap changed. No one can go over the salary cap and teams still have to be under it by 3 million. Hopefully more owners see the value of this proposal.
Well it's good food for thought. What is good for the league as a whole and trying to stay true to the NFL is a balancing act. Did you (Salem) get burned by the 70 million dollar cap?
Here's my issue: I want to place the responsibility of monitoring roster requirements and salary cap limits on the owner rather than the league office. The league office has enough to do as it is and doesn't need to be double checking everyone's math. If this proposal is rewritten so that it places the burden on the individual owner to keep track of his roster and salary numbers, AND specifies procedures and penalties for failure to meet those requirements, I'd be favorable to it. That would mean that we could dispense with the Cut Down date salary cap if there was a way to ensure that each team has enough money left to draft a full squad and, if not, had rules in place to deal with the math challenged.
