Contract Renegotiations

So you have a star quarterback that makes Brady look like Bouman, and you want to make sure you keep him wrapped up for life. The problem is, his contract is expiring at the end of the year. What can you do about it?

Fear not! You can renegotiate contracts with any player on your team at any time. How do you do that? First off, go to your "My Roster" screen, and then select the player you want to renegotiate with by clicking on him. Below his stats, you will see a "Contract Renegotiation" section :



You can not renegotiate the current year of a contract unless the game is in the Pre-Draft, Draft, or Pre-June 1 period of the season. Also, as with free agency, the contracts the player presents to you are contracts he will accept (the amount of money may vary by the number of years you select to renegotiate his contract for). Unlike Free Agency, however, the renegotiation of a player contract happens immediately.

In this example, you will see several things:

• Since the league spin is in the regular season, you cannot renegotiate his contract for the current season
• His contract expires after the 2010 season, so it's not of great urgency to renegotiate in 2008, especially since his contract has a bonus applied to it in 2009 and 2010 ($440,000 each year) which is bonus money that would have to accounted for by applying it to the 2009 Dead Cap (an overall cap hit of an additional $880,000 in 2009).

Given those points, when would renegotiating a contract be advantageous to do before the contract year?

For starters, imagine this player is a young player that has begun improving rapidly. It may be worth accepting an $880,000 cap hit in 2009 to wrap him up for additional years before his asking price goes up.

Also, if a player doesn't currently have a bonus, signing an extension costs nothing against your "dead cap."

Finally, if a player is in the final couple of years of a long term contract, you may be able to SAVE money in the current and/or upcoming year by renegotiating a contract. Since players crave guaranteed bonuses, they may be willing to eat the final year of a contract to sign for an extra year of bonus money. So there will be instances in which it is cap friendly to have a player resign before his contract originally expires. This is especially true when negotiating with a player in the current year of a contract (only possible during the Pre-Draft, Draft, or Pre-June 1 period spins). In those spins, the current year bonus would have to taken off as dead cap, but would be done so in the current year. It is likely the player will accept a much lower base in the first year of the new contract, so it can prove to be a win/win for both parties.

Another thing to note : every player you renegotiate with WILL ask for a bonus of some sort. If he's willing to resign and not test the open market, ya gotta be willing to show him some "guaranteed cash" love!

You can renegotiate player contracts through the end of the season. Once, however, the season is completed, all players whose contracts have expired will become free agents. Make sure you renegotiate with your players before the game rolls over to a new season!