RULE 7E proposed change...
 

I propose changing the language in RULE 7E

From:

No trades involving off-season RFA players can be officially posted until the mid-August declaration deadline.

To:

No trades involving acquired RFA players can be made until contract years are assigned to said player.

This allows for acquired RFAs to be legally rostered assets fully manageable by owners.

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

I'm not understanding what you're attempting to accomplish here, thus have to vote no at this time.

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

Make acquired RFAs legally tradeable...

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

I see two valid reasons for this rule (or something similar).
1) Rule prevents the original owner from Matching the final offer, then attempting to trade the player for additional compensation (ie.. another player or draft picks)
2) Rule also prevents two players from working together to keep the price down (ie.. original owner works with another owner with the plan to trade the player after the bidding is over - price is not driven up by the second owner and when the bidding is done, original owner matches and trades player for additional compensation.)

The common thread might be the original owner matching and trying to gain additional compensation from the player. I am voting, that this needs additional discussion - possibly a tweak that "if the original owner matches, then the player is not in a position to be traded before the regular season begins."

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

Officially tabled as option 3 has the most votes...

I tried...we will see if it ever gets advanced again...

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

I think there's room for a tweak to this current rule. Definitely. We just need to think it out so that what David just said doesn't happen (double compensation or keeping the bidding down in collusion).

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

Yeah...I would like to see the aspect of draft compensation stay in the final rule for teams losing a RFA as it is only fair like the real NFL...now how we do that and restrict any form of collusion is the work needed...

An owner declining a RFA has to be restricted from acquiring the player for sure because he had a chance to keep him...

An owner matching a RFA should be restricted from trades of the player for a timetable which has a reason behind it.

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

you could just restrict any trades till after the draft, so any RFAs matched or declined do not effect the draft at least. or just put it out no trades for 1-2 months after RFA period ends. But I do see a change as possibly complicated, so many things can open up.

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

Owners could still work out a deal trading the RFA for the player picked in the draft, thus having same outcome.
I guess we all gotta decide, can we play fair and not work the system? I would be willing to give it a shot again by simply removing the trade restriction on RFA.. Nothing else

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

I’m looking at this from a newbie point of view, so only know the history from what I’ve read.

It appears that the goal is to allow a team winning an RFA the ability to trade the newly acquired player – whether he needs to free up cap space or finds someone that missed a bid or for whatever reason…

The issue resolved by this rule was to prevent collusion between two teams to keep the price down on a player or for the original tendering team to gain additional compensation (both of these appear to be mostly original tendering team driven).

The underlying concern seems to stem from the tendering team’s chance to corrupt the bid. My opinion is that we change the rule to limit the tendering team’s ability to trade MATCHED players. This rule change would open trading for all winning bid’s obtained through the RFA, allowing owners to manage their players and open trading to the tending team to trade a player that no one bid on. This rule would also be reasonably easy for the league office to administer.

Examples, using current season…

Opihi COULD trade Diggs to free up cap space and possibly pick up a draft pick or lower priced player. (Everyone had the opportunity to bid on Diggs and the Burners had the opportunity to Match, if the price was right).

Roosters WOULD NOT be able to trade Anderson. He was bid on and won by the Scorpions and subsequently matched by the Roosters. Anderson can be cut by the Roosters at any time (with a cap hit) or traded AFTER the 3rd NFL pre-season week.

If by the end of RFA period, Jeffrey has not been bid on, Freedom COULD trade Jeffrey. Although the RFA tender was too high for anyone to bid, he would still have the ability to trade Jeffrey to a team that is willing to take the high salary if there was other compensation.

The following rule change would be reasonably easy to administer by the league office and reduce the chance of corrupting the RFA process.

OLD RULE:
RFA’a cannot be traded prior to the start of the in season free agency period. (first Wednesday following the last game 3rd NFL pre-season week). The team winning the rights to the RFA (either the tendering team if they decide to match, or the highest bidding team if the tendering team declines to match) cannot trade that player until the start of the in season free agency has begun.
PROPOSED CHANGE:
If a RFA player is matched by the tendering team, that player cannot be traded prior to the start of the in season free agency period. (first Wednesday following the last game 3rd NFL pre-season week). All other RFA players are eligible for trades once they have been officially declined by the tendering team or the RFA Period is over (for player's not bid on). See trade requirements listed in Section7 for trading requirements.

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

Brilliant! Well said, David. I like it! You just might be on to something by differentiating between matches and RFA squired.

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

BTW: The rule I quoted above was from section 8A. 7E will also need to be tweaked accordingly, if the rule is changed.

Re: RULE 7E proposed change...
 

Sorry I’ve been in Florida the past 5 days so late to the revival of the conversation.

The problem with David’s proposal is that it doesn’t prevent 2 teams from colluding on a stop in bidding on a player in exchange for 1 of the teams sending some sort of compensation to the team with the high bid for the player if the player is declined by the tendering team.

Example:
Player Y is on a teams roster where matching is unlikely (whether due to cap space, over abundance oat the position, whatever)

Team 1 opens Player Y
Team 2 ups the bid

They go back and forth a bit, eventually team 1 says hey, quit bidding and I’ll trade Player Y to you if I win said player for XYZ

Player Y now sells artificially low.

This scenario HAS happened before these restrictions were put in place 15 years ago and was completely legal to do. It’s one of the reasons for the restrictions.

The second issue I see with David’s proposal is that teams could artificially bid on players with the sole intent of flipping said player for whatever they can get, and then wash rinse and repeat and do it again.

My 2 cents...