Piercewise1

Hello coaches!

Today’s update is all about the NFL salary cap, with a focus on generated contracts for existing NFL players. I’ll break down how I calculated the total value of those contracts, as well as the Bonus amounts and starting contract lengths. Then I’ll go over the rookie pay scale for our first draft class. By the end you will have all the data on your current cap expense and remaining cap space, and a link to the cap sheets with all your current information already loaded.

This is a dense update with a lot of charts and math but, given the huge impact this has on the formation of the league, I want to be completely transparent as to how these contracts were created. Also, apart from the initial copying and pasting of roster pools, everything was calculated and reviewed with team and player names hidden.

A note on terminology before we dive in: Bonus is the guaranteed money on a player’s contract; it is always pro-rated evenly over the life of the contract. Salary (capital S) is the remaining money which is not guaranteed and can change year to year. To avoid confusion, I’ll try to always refer to a player’s combined pay as their “contract”. Also, “star” player is my term for Pro Bowlers and Starters (your pool selections that are better than Below Average).

Baseline by Position

All the Below Average players, regardless of position, are on minimum salaries (0.5M Salary per year, no Bonus). Their contract length was determined the same way as star players, which we’ll cover a little later.

For star players, I began with the table below; this was calculated from a list of the NFL’s top 1,000 cap hits of 2021 (via spotrac.com), with some rounding for simplicity. They follow a pattern that should look familiar: QBs make by far the most money, followed by OTs, then edge rushers, etc. These numbers constitute the baseline, which I modified using the other available criteria.

Modifiers

The factors below raise or lower the player’s pay in year 1. When more than one apply, they are added together: 50% + 10% = 60%, not 65%

Tier

Pro Bowl: +50%

Starter: no change

Pro Bowlers are the extreme end of the bell curve, the best of the best, and are paid a premium even compared to other starters.

Experience

Young: -30%

Prime: no change

Vet: no change

While we don’t have retroactive draft classes and rookie contracts, there is still a financial benefit to having less experienced players that are still developing. Young players make less than their peers at the same position.

Overall

High: +20%

Medium: +10%

Low: no change

Within each of the six groups (Pro Bowl/Prime, Starter/Prime, Starter/Vet, etc) I broke down the player pool by Overall score and created 3 ranges: High, Medium, and Low. Ranges were created such that ~50% of players fell into the Medium category, ideally with 25% each in the Low and High categories (though that wasn’t always possible). Players with higher Overall score make more money; for example, a 79 Vet Starter makes more than a 73 Vet Starter at the same position, though the impact is not as large as the other modifiers.

Note that the ranges are wider for Young players and get smaller with each age category.

Bonus Money

All star players have a minimum 50% of their year 1 pay as a Bonus. That allocation increases by 10% for each age range, with an additional 15% for Pro Bowl players. Basically, the older and better the player, the more guaranteed money they get. The remainder of their pay is Salary.

Subsequent Years

The default contracts increase in value by 10% each year. So a player calculated to make $5.0M this year will make $5.5M next year and $6.05M the year after that (if they have a second & third year on their contract, see below). The Bonus amount will remain flat, as Bonus is always pro-rated evenly over the length of the contract; the increase will come in the form of additional Salary.

Contract Length

Now that we know how much players are paid, we need to determine the length of their current contract. I started with the age categories:

• Young players (years 2-4) had 2-year contracts
  
• Prime players (years 5-7) had 3-year contracts
  
• Vet players (years 8-11) had 2-year contracts
  

However, this would leave a barren wasteland in free agency next year, so any player that has the most experience of their age group has one year taken off. Thus, Young players with exactly 4 years’ experience have only 1 year on their current contract, Prime players with 7 experience have only 2 years, and Vets with 10-11 experience (there are only a few each) only have 1 year. All together it looks like this:

The intention here is to mimic the pace of real NFL contacts without recreating entire historical drafts or past free agency periods. Experienced Young players are still cheap but are about to sign their first non-rookie deals; Prime players are locked up in long expensive contracts (a boon if they perform well, but an anchor if they don’t), and Vets are looking for shorter deals that pay them a lot of guaranteed money in a short amount of time.

The possibility of having multiple Young players already in a contract year represents a distinct challenge, especially since it was not established before pools were selected. To mitigate this, all owners are allowed to select ONE (1) Young player and automatically extend his contract by 1 year. Any Young players can be selected for this benefit, regardless of their years of experience. This is a unique, one-time choice due to the nature of the pool selection process and will only occur in this first league year.

The contract value of this additional year will be automatically calculated based on the rules outlined above (10% increase in total value, in the form of additional Salary). There will be a separate forum post where you will make your selection.

Rookie Pay Scale

Drafted rookies automatically sign 4-year contracts for a set amount, depending on when they were drafted.

• Picks from rounds 2-8* are paid by round (all 2nd rounders have the same contract, etc) and their Bonus and Salary are predetermined
  
  • Round 8 will only occur in the first league year, since we are starting with a snake draft; all future drafts will be 7 rounds in a standard format
    

  [*]1st round picks are paid differently by pick, and the team must negotiate their Bonus amounts individually. The team will also have the future option to extend the rookie contract into a 5th year at a predetermined rate, but that won’t come into effect for several seasons.

The annual value of all contracts are flat over 4 years; only the distribution of Bonus and Salary changes.

Salary Cap

The salary cap for 2022 is $150M. This ensures that all teams have a chance to sign impact free agents in the initial offseason. Factoring in the cost of star players, below average players, and allocations for draft picks, teams will have anywhere from $35M to $66M in available cap space at the start of free agency (see below). You can see all the details on your team’s cap sheet, which can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dE-pZ8bbi_Z6oYoeGkAvvjoYmiQ6zwDr?ths=true

That’s it for this Dev Diary! A lot to process, a lot to consider, but hopefully a lot of excitement as we get closer to our inaugural NFL season. Please discuss or ask any questions below and I will answer as soon as I can.

-Pierce