Free agency

Sam C · 03-22-2014, 02:50 PM

Now is a timely moment to discuss the current hot topic within the NFL. Free agency.

Free agency can be defined as complex but also very simple, depending on the angle you look at it. The way I see it, there are seven main reasons why you might be interested in signing a free agent:

- Address a gaping hole in your roster a.k.a a ‘team need’
- Add depth to a position on your roster
- You don’t have a team need but you would like to upgrade the quality of a unit on your roster
- You anticipate future salary cap problems so you cut an expensive player and sign a cheaper replacement
- You have a unit you’d like to improve and don’t think you’ll be able to improve it through the draft
- You want your roster to be younger, a.k.a rebuilding
- You want your roster to be more experienced a.k.a ‘win now mode’

There are a few other rarer and more controversial reasons that you might come across such as; owner interference, signing a player to impress the fans/sell merchandise or most controversial of all, you sign a cheap player instead of a good one because you are happy to suck and want the higher draft pick in the next season.

For the purposes of this post, I’ll ignore these rarer reasons and focus on the main list which are more likely to be factored into an NFL computer game and more likely to be admitted in real life.

Looking at my two usual examples of other games, Head Coach ‘09 and Football Manager 2014, these are examples of how free agency can be poorly or well executed.

Signing a free agent player
In HC ’09, free agency is limited by its console format and arcade interface. Basically, any player who is not signed to a new contract goes into a massive pool of players which are announced to you at the start of the off-season. You then enter a ‘bidding war’ with other teams, although in reality unless you are seriously cap strapped you will always win the bidding war because after a few improved offers for the player, the other teams inevitably drop out and you get your man. This isn’t a realistic way to recreate free agency because it also doesn’t take into account the other factors such as location, favored personnel, franchise system/philosophy or for specific positions such as a free agent wide receiver, they might prefer to play for a team with a superior Quarterback and vice versa, a free agent Quarterback might prefer to play for a team with better wide receiving options or a good O-Line. In a nutshell, EA’s free agency model was seriously flawed.

Strangely, despite ‘free agency’ being a much less common occurrence in the world of soccer. Football Manager actually has the ideal model that can be adapted for an NFL management simulation. While free agents in soccer are rare (especially for signing very good players), the introduction of the ‘Bosman ruling’ in 1995 actually sets up a good system for either trades or signing free agents in an American Football game. In FM14 (and many of the games leading up to it), an unhappy player can put in a transfer request if they want to switch clubs, they don’t always get their way but a lot of the time they do and the club will sell them on for what they consider to be fair value. If the club refuse to sell, they run the risk of the player running his contract down and leaving ‘on a Bosman’ (free transfer to another club).

The real time equivalent of this would be the alleged dispute between DeSean Jackson and the Philadelphia Eagles. Jackson is unhappy so the Eagles are trying to trade him for as high value as possible, but if they don’t succeed they can cut him and save on his wages or keep hold of him but at risk of him being an unsettled, unproductive player and a bad influence in the locker room. The longer this goes on, Jackson’s trade value will drop because other teams will realise that neither he nor the Eagles want him to be playing in Philadelphia. If he was a player in Football Manager it might display him as ‘Unh’ Unhappy or ‘Req’ Transfer listed by request. It might also say ‘Wnt’ and suggest that he’s wanted by the Panthers, Seahawks, 49ers and Jets. The longer the saga goes on, Jackson’s trade value might diminish from a trade for a 1st round draft pick, all the way down to the Eagles having to bite the bullet and cut him if a deal can’t be made. On the flip side, if the interested teams don’t act quickly, they may well face increased competition because as soon as Jackson hits free agency, nobody has to give up draft pick compensation any more and Jackson can choose where he wants to ply his trade. Therefore, the Jets or Panthers (who might be considered less desirable landing spots at present) might be wise to offer a draft pick trade to the Eagles so that they can pretty much automatically beat off the competition of the two NFC West giants.

Football Manager deals with this by incrementally dropping the value of the player throughout the season, so a £5 million player in September 2013 might only be worth £2.5 million in January 2014, six months before his contract expires. This might encourage a smaller club to bid early so they can secure his services before the big fish all get involved when the player’s contract expires.

This brings us to the actual signing of a player who has hit free agency. In Football Manager, you make an offer to a free agent or player whose contract is about to expire but may be joined by multiple other clubs who have designs on the same player. The player then gets to make his decision using various factors such as financial package (obviously) but also reputation of the club, chance of winning trophies, location, favoured personnel, length of contract and other bonuses and sweeteners. This mirrors the NFL system very closely. A player is on the market, anybody can speak to him, they might even sweeten the deal with the offer of a visit and tour of the city or a promise that the player will be the ‘no.1 guy’ but ultimately it comes down to the same financial and hygiene factors. A similar system to the FM system would work nicely in a game like BTS.

Needs + value
Head Coach ’09 put a huge emphasis on ‘team needs’ and even had a handy little screen which showed you an infograph about where your franchise was struggling. Nice on the surface but there were problems with the overall system. Your owner would often say things like “sign a free safety with an overall rating of 85 or more”, this seems fine but never actually considered that most of the successful franchises are built for the long term and not just to patch up some needs in a single offseason. For example, the Dolphins might sign Chad Pennington, this would move their Quarterback need from 1st most critical to 6th most critical but would only partially solve their Quarterback problem for a season or two. It might also lead to the Dolphins going into free agency to overpay a right guard because he’s top of their list of most critical needs. This isn’t realistic and meant that by building your own franchise sensibly you could often beat the AI of all the other teams who were short sightedly patching up their needs for the short term.

That’s why a free agency system has to have needs and value under consideration, not just a shopping list of needs and demands from an impatient owner. It needs to factor in the seven key reasons above and also take into account ages of players and the overall value of a position leading into the draft e.g. the Raiders, Vikings and Bucs might still all have an eye on a quarterback for the future in this year’s draft and the Texans will definitely need to draft a quarterback because they’ve been ignoring the Quarterbacks in free agency and recently traded away Matt Schaub.

This could also tie in with ‘Owner expectations’ (which I will probably cover in another post at some point), there could be a feature where the Owner tells you what he’s expecting, such as: “I want you to draft our QB for the future”, “We’re in win-now mode, let’s sign some big names and go to the Super Bowl” or “We’re in full rebuild mode, lets trade for some future draft picks and forget about this year”. When combined with some of the ‘Philosophies’ ideas in the other post, this could lead to even more fascinating possibilities for BTS General Managers.

Cryomaniac · 03-22-2014, 04:25 PM

I dont think its necessarily that unrealistic if a team seemingly fills a need and then overspends at a different position. It shouldnt happen often, but its maybe not thar insane, especially if the owner is the kind to get impatient or keys on certain positions / attributes (obvious RL example is someone like Jerry Jones or Al Davis).

Le Grande Orange · 03-22-2014, 05:00 PM

Something else to keep in mind about the NFL's brand of free agency is: (1) the difference between restricted and unrestricted free agents; and (2) the franchise and transition player tags.

The annual NFL Record & Fact Book has a handy compilation of the number of each type of free agent who have signed with a new club since the system was initiated in 1993.

Code:

NFL Free Agency Movement

The following chart details
veteran free agents who signed
with new teams:


Year   UFA  RFA  T  F  TOTAL
----------------------------
1993   108   8   4  1   121
1994   121   7   4  0   132
1995   171   6   2  0   179
1996   100   4   2  0   106
1997    86   2   2  0    90
1998   112   4   1  2   119
1999   115   2   1  0   118
2000   107   4   0  0   111
2001    93   4   0  0    97
2002   130   1   0  0   131
2003   111   5   1  0   117
2004   124   1   1  0   126
2005   104   3   0  0   107
2006   149   4   1  0   154
2007   126   4   0  0   130
2008   132   3   0  0   135
2009   128   0   0  0   128
2010    51   1   0  0    52
2011   163   0   0  0   163
2012   143   0   0  0   143

UFA: Unrestricted Free Agent
RFA: Restricted Free Agent
T:   Transition Player
F:   Franchise Player

While restriced free agents rarely change clubs, unrestricted free agents frequently do (which ought not to be surprising).

goalieump413 · 03-22-2014, 07:07 PM

@LGO, In your chart you provided, thank you BTW, is there a way to include a column for the number of UFA's that re-signed with their existing team to produce a comparison of the rate of new teams vs overall UFA's?

@Sam C, Although HC09 did place an emphasis on team needs, most teams in real life do that anyway. And the owner's goals list which would often include signing a top FA would usually not be as important to me as other goals. I'd often disregard it altogether, opting to sign a my needs at FA before an elite player.

For BTS, my only real wish would be that the FA system be a solid reflection of real life league situations, along with team philosophies, player attitudes, etc. Game players have come to expect these kind of things be included for realism, and coding this might be tough, given player/agent greed as a factor in negotiations.

Le Grande Orange · 03-22-2014, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by goalieump413

@LGO, In your chart you provided, thank you BTW, is there a way to include a column for the number of UFA's that re-signed with their existing team to produce a comparison of the rate of new teams vs overall UFA's?

The chart in the NFL Record & Fact Book only includes the numbers I posted. Those are the number of free agents who actually changed teams (which is presumably a smaller number than the total number of players eligible in any given season who become free agents, restricted or unrestricted).

goalieump413 · 03-22-2014, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

The chart in the NFL Record & Fact Book only includes the numbers I posted. Those are the number of free agents who actually changed teams (which is presumably a smaller number than the total number of players eligible in any given season who become free agents, restricted or unrestricted).

I wonder if there's a listing of the historical players that became FA's, and where they signed. I'd love to research who stayed and who left, as teams evolve...

03-22-2014, 02:50 PM	#1
Sam C Bat Boy Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: Sussex, UK Posts: 10	Free agency Now is a timely moment to discuss the current hot topic within the NFL. Free agency. Free agency can be defined as complex but also very simple, depending on the angle you look at it. The way I see it, there are seven main reasons why you might be interested in signing a free agent: - Address a gaping hole in your roster a.k.a a ‘team need’ - Add depth to a position on your roster - You don’t have a team need but you would like to upgrade the quality of a unit on your roster - You anticipate future salary cap problems so you cut an expensive player and sign a cheaper replacement - You have a unit you’d like to improve and don’t think you’ll be able to improve it through the draft - You want your roster to be younger, a.k.a rebuilding - You want your roster to be more experienced a.k.a ‘win now mode’ There are a few other rarer and more controversial reasons that you might come across such as; owner interference, signing a player to impress the fans/sell merchandise or most controversial of all, you sign a cheap player instead of a good one because you are happy to suck and want the higher draft pick in the next season. For the purposes of this post, I’ll ignore these rarer reasons and focus on the main list which are more likely to be factored into an NFL computer game and more likely to be admitted in real life. Looking at my two usual examples of other games, Head Coach ‘09 and Football Manager 2014, these are examples of how free agency can be poorly or well executed. Signing a free agent player In HC ’09, free agency is limited by its console format and arcade interface. Basically, any player who is not signed to a new contract goes into a massive pool of players which are announced to you at the start of the off-season. You then enter a ‘bidding war’ with other teams, although in reality unless you are seriously cap strapped you will always win the bidding war because after a few improved offers for the player, the other teams inevitably drop out and you get your man. This isn’t a realistic way to recreate free agency because it also doesn’t take into account the other factors such as location, favored personnel, franchise system/philosophy or for specific positions such as a free agent wide receiver, they might prefer to play for a team with a superior Quarterback and vice versa, a free agent Quarterback might prefer to play for a team with better wide receiving options or a good O-Line. In a nutshell, EA’s free agency model was seriously flawed. Strangely, despite ‘free agency’ being a much less common occurrence in the world of soccer. Football Manager actually has the ideal model that can be adapted for an NFL management simulation. While free agents in soccer are rare (especially for signing very good players), the introduction of the ‘Bosman ruling’ in 1995 actually sets up a good system for either trades or signing free agents in an American Football game. In FM14 (and many of the games leading up to it), an unhappy player can put in a transfer request if they want to switch clubs, they don’t always get their way but a lot of the time they do and the club will sell them on for what they consider to be fair value. If the club refuse to sell, they run the risk of the player running his contract down and leaving ‘on a Bosman’ (free transfer to another club). The real time equivalent of this would be the alleged dispute between DeSean Jackson and the Philadelphia Eagles. Jackson is unhappy so the Eagles are trying to trade him for as high value as possible, but if they don’t succeed they can cut him and save on his wages or keep hold of him but at risk of him being an unsettled, unproductive player and a bad influence in the locker room. The longer this goes on, Jackson’s trade value will drop because other teams will realise that neither he nor the Eagles want him to be playing in Philadelphia. If he was a player in Football Manager it might display him as ‘Unh’ Unhappy or ‘Req’ Transfer listed by request. It might also say ‘Wnt’ and suggest that he’s wanted by the Panthers, Seahawks, 49ers and Jets. The longer the saga goes on, Jackson’s trade value might diminish from a trade for a 1st round draft pick, all the way down to the Eagles having to bite the bullet and cut him if a deal can’t be made. On the flip side, if the interested teams don’t act quickly, they may well face increased competition because as soon as Jackson hits free agency, nobody has to give up draft pick compensation any more and Jackson can choose where he wants to ply his trade. Therefore, the Jets or Panthers (who might be considered less desirable landing spots at present) might be wise to offer a draft pick trade to the Eagles so that they can pretty much automatically beat off the competition of the two NFC West giants. Football Manager deals with this by incrementally dropping the value of the player throughout the season, so a £5 million player in September 2013 might only be worth £2.5 million in January 2014, six months before his contract expires. This might encourage a smaller club to bid early so they can secure his services before the big fish all get involved when the player’s contract expires. This brings us to the actual signing of a player who has hit free agency. In Football Manager, you make an offer to a free agent or player whose contract is about to expire but may be joined by multiple other clubs who have designs on the same player. The player then gets to make his decision using various factors such as financial package (obviously) but also reputation of the club, chance of winning trophies, location, favoured personnel, length of contract and other bonuses and sweeteners. This mirrors the NFL system very closely. A player is on the market, anybody can speak to him, they might even sweeten the deal with the offer of a visit and tour of the city or a promise that the player will be the ‘no.1 guy’ but ultimately it comes down to the same financial and hygiene factors. A similar system to the FM system would work nicely in a game like BTS. Needs + value Head Coach ’09 put a huge emphasis on ‘team needs’ and even had a handy little screen which showed you an infograph about where your franchise was struggling. Nice on the surface but there were problems with the overall system. Your owner would often say things like “sign a free safety with an overall rating of 85 or more”, this seems fine but never actually considered that most of the successful franchises are built for the long term and not just to patch up some needs in a single offseason. For example, the Dolphins might sign Chad Pennington, this would move their Quarterback need from 1st most critical to 6th most critical but would only partially solve their Quarterback problem for a season or two. It might also lead to the Dolphins going into free agency to overpay a right guard because he’s top of their list of most critical needs. This isn’t realistic and meant that by building your own franchise sensibly you could often beat the AI of all the other teams who were short sightedly patching up their needs for the short term. That’s why a free agency system has to have needs and value under consideration, not just a shopping list of needs and demands from an impatient owner. It needs to factor in the seven key reasons above and also take into account ages of players and the overall value of a position leading into the draft e.g. the Raiders, Vikings and Bucs might still all have an eye on a quarterback for the future in this year’s draft and the Texans will definitely need to draft a quarterback because they’ve been ignoring the Quarterbacks in free agency and recently traded away Matt Schaub. This could also tie in with ‘Owner expectations’ (which I will probably cover in another post at some point), there could be a feature where the Owner tells you what he’s expecting, such as: “I want you to draft our QB for the future”, “We’re in win-now mode, let’s sign some big names and go to the Super Bowl” or “We’re in full rebuild mode, lets trade for some future draft picks and forget about this year”. When combined with some of the ‘Philosophies’ ideas in the other post, this could lead to even more fascinating possibilities for BTS General Managers.

03-22-2014, 04:25 PM	#2
Cryomaniac Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2007 Location: Hucknall, Notts, UK Posts: 4,902	I dont think its necessarily that unrealistic if a team seemingly fills a need and then overspends at a different position. It shouldnt happen often, but its maybe not thar insane, especially if the owner is the kind to get impatient or keys on certain positions / attributes (obvious RL example is someone like Jerry Jones or Al Davis). __________________ Last edited by Cryomaniac; 03-22-2014 at 04:26 PM. Reason: phone induced typo

03-22-2014, 07:07 PM	#4
goalieump413 All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 765	@LGO, In your chart you provided, thank you BTW, is there a way to include a column for the number of UFA's that re-signed with their existing team to produce a comparison of the rate of new teams vs overall UFA's? @Sam C, Although HC09 did place an emphasis on team needs, most teams in real life do that anyway. And the owner's goals list which would often include signing a top FA would usually not be as important to me as other goals. I'd often disregard it altogether, opting to sign a my needs at FA before an elite player. For BTS, my only real wish would be that the FA system be a solid reflection of real life league situations, along with team philosophies, player attitudes, etc. Game players have come to expect these kind of things be included for realism, and coding this might be tough, given player/agent greed as a factor in negotiations. Last edited by goalieump413; 03-22-2014 at 07:15 PM.