Salary Cap Confidential: Player Retention
Personally, I prefer salary cap leagues that offer owners the option to retain players. Others like as many quality players to hit the free-agent market as possible but I favor an experience that mimics the decisions of an NFL general manager and that includes the ability to hand out franchise tags and re-sign players to long term contracts. So this edition of Salary Cap Confidential will cover the strategies used when making such decisions.
Like most of the subjects covered in this series, using player retention to improve your salary cap franchise effectively hinges on the league’s rules and understanding them completely. Let’s begin by explaining the avenues for retaining players available to cap owners during the off-season, starting with applying tags such as franchise tags, transition tags, etc.
Tags go by many different names and depending on your rules, retain players in many different ways so it’s important to avoid generalizations (such as calling a one-year tag a “franchise tag” as we discuss the specific options available to owners each off-season.
One-Year Tags
The most common tag available to owners gives owners the right to retain one player per off-season on a new one-year contract, calculated by taking the average of top-paid players’ salaries at the position. Normally a player given this tag will receive a completely guaranteed salary.
One-year tags often get confusing for dynasty owners – particularly when they are fully guaranteed – because it’s easy to assume they should only be reserved for elite players due to the high price associated with them. That’s not always the case, however.
Back in the Managing Contracts edition of Salary Cap Confidential, I wrote: “There is no such thing as a bad one-year contract.” That statement was unfinished. It really means that there’s no such thing as a bad one-year contract if you need the player and there are no better or cheaper options. Often owners get overly apprehensive about overpaying a player which is a worthy concern but the truth is, one-year contracts have little risk even when they are mostly or fully guaranteed. So while a decision may turn out to be the wrong one, because it’s erased after one year it shouldn’t be called a bad one. It was the right decision at the time. All of this factors in regularly when considering players for one-year tags.
For instance, in leagues where it’s difficult to sign players to one-year contracts such as those where you bid years along with salary in a free agent auction or leagues with rules that require multi-year contracts for players with high salaries, one-year tags can be incredibly useful despite the high cost. They can even be beneficial to use on players who aren’t necessarily elite.
Imagine having a 26-year old mid-RB2 with an expired contract on a contending team in need of an RB2/flex player. Such a player – in most leagues – would command a solid salary for multiple seasons but you have players that will need retaining with higher salaries a year from now so you don’t want to extend beyond a one-year commitment to this running back. The one-year tag becomes a solid option in such a situation. Now consider that the 26-year old mid-RB2 is one of the top running backs in free agency that off-season. If you have the cap space, it may be a slam dunk to pay the 20th-best running back the average of the top-two salaried players at the position.
So no matter if your league calls it a franchise tag, transition tag, developmental tag or any other name, it’s important to look at things with a very broad scope and consider all your options before allowing a player to hit free agency. One year tags often look expensive at the time. But once players hit the open market, suddenly appear to have been the best option.
Long-term Re-signings
It’s relatively rare to find a salary cap league that allows owners to re-sign players to multi-year contracts because it typically creates a lot of work for the commissioner but again, I prefer them even if it is expensive to do so. At the very least owners should have the option of re-signing any player to a long-term extension if they’re willing to make said player the highest paid at their position. In such cases, long-term re-signings should obviously only be reserved for truly elite players but even then, the golden rule of contracts should be considered.
If you don’t remember the golden rule of contracts from the Managing Contracts edition of Salary Cap Confidential, it asked: “What are the chances the player outperforms the salary I’m offering him this year?” and surmised that “If the answer isn’t ‘good’ or better, he’s not worth a multi-year contract offer.”
The key work in the question above is “outperform.” If he’s already the best player at his position, he can’t really get any better. So perhaps using a one-year tag on the player is a better option than the long-term signing. Unless of course, your league rules say the penalty for releasing a player isn’t very strict.
In leagues where re-signing players doesn’t require the top salary at a particular position (such as leagues that average the top-10 or 15 salaries), the golden rule of contracts is still the key factor. If you truly believe the player will outperform their salary AND the player is very likely to go for as much or more in free agency, re-signing is a valid and perhaps even obvious option. If not, however, it’s important to consider another route. This leads us to your last alternative when it comes to expiring contracts.
Letting Players Test Free Agency
One of the worst feelings as a cap owner is the feeling of needing a player back on your team (and having the option to do so) only to let him hit free agency and see him go for more than you could have retained him for and afforded. That’s why letting a player test free agency should be seen as the last option when it comes to players you want to retain.
Obviously, most non-essential players with expiring contracts go through the vetting process for one-year tags and long-term extensions very quickly but it’s important to consider each of those options carefully when considering players you hope to keep.
With that said, when making decisions on players who aren’t essential to the progress of your franchise, there’s nothing wrong with allowing a player to test free agency even if you hope to retain them. After all, you can bid on the player too.
Next time in Salary Cap Confidential, we’ll cover the things to keep in mind when considering salary cap trades.
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