[Preds]

The RFA restrictions were put in place and compensation system was developed because teams (not just me) were creatively negotiating with the tagging team to match or decline players and give them compensation in exchange. In some cases it meant the team offering pics would stop bidding (which thereby reduced the market for the player), then the tendering team would match and trade other player away for compensation.

There were also cases where teams declined players in exchange for compensation from the winning bidder.

The solution was to create a RFA compensation system, and RFA's to teams for the summer so that they HAD to integrate the player won into their off-season cap plans, or release said player as a UFA.

It was a workable solution to the issue many had issues with at the time, even though it was openly done and not forbidden in the rules at the time.

I personally think it would be ok to relax the rules in some way, but don't want to see teams creating a trade market by bidding on players then trading them away, or matching only to then trade away and get both the comp pics and the trade compensation at some point.

My suggestion relax the rules by allowing Matching teams to trade RFA's prior to the draft ONLY if they give up the draft pic compensation (can get messy tracking) AND pay a 20% penalty as another team suggested, while also locking said player the rest of the off-season if not traded prior to the draft.

As for teams winning declined players, I like the idea of allowing trades to any team that wasn't involved in the bidding without any penalties, or pay a penalty (maybe 30% split between the acquiring and trading teams) to trade a player to a team that was involved in the bidding.