## Imd Free Agency Bidding Thread - Offense ##

[jfalconsp]

The Atlanta Falcons modify the following contracts:

Harry Douglas, WR- 4 year deal with an 4 million signing bonus

Year 1 base salary- 1 million

Year 2 base salary- 2 million

Year 3 base salary- 3 million

Year 4 base salary- 4 million

Year 1 cap hit- 2 million

Total salary- 14 million

Marques Colston, WR- 3 year deal with a $6 million signing bonus

Year 1 base salary- $3 million

Year 2 base salary- $4 million

Year 3 base salary- $5 million

Year 1 cap hit- $5 million

Total salary- $18 million

Cap space left: 3.25 million

[jfalconsp]

The Denver Broncos rescind their offer to Ray Rice and extend the following contracts:

Ben Grubbs, OG

5 year deal with a $15 million signing bonus

Year 1 base salary- $3 million

Year 2 base salary- $4 million

Year 3 base salary- $5 million

Year 4 base salary- $6 million

Year 5 base salary- $7 million

Year 1 cap hit- $6 million

Total salary- $40 million

Tashard Choice, RB

1 year deal with no bonus

Year 1 cap hit- 250k

Cedric Benson, RB

1 year deal with no bonus

Year 1 cap hit- 250k

Total cap space: $0 + $14.25 million - $6.5 million= $7.75 million

Edited March 12, 2012 by jfalconsp

[The Dirty Bird]

The Jets modify their offer for Drew Brees until the bidding period to:

Year 1: 10 million

Year 2: 12 million

Year 3: 12 million

Cap Hit: 10 million

1 Year, 250 k deal for:

QB Jason Campbell

New initial offers for the following amount:

Y1: 250k

Y2: 1.25 mil

Y3: 2.25 mil

Y4: 3.25 mil

Y5: 4.25 mil

Y6: 5.25 mil

Total = 16.5 million

Cap Hit = 250k

for the following players:

RB Ray Rice

WR Vincent Jackson

QB Matt Flynn

TE Martellus Bennett

OG Chilo Rachal -- update to this amount

OT Jared Gaither -- update to this amount

WR Rob Meachem -- update to this amount

[Julio Pwns]

The Jets modify their offer for Drew Brees until the bidding period to:

Year 1: 10 million

Year 2: 12 million

Year 3: 12 million

Cap Hit: 10 million

The revision to the contract made above isn't valid because it is a decrease from the contract that you initially offered to Brees the original containing a $15,000,000 cap hit which was 75% of your cap.

Robb actually went as far as to state this in the rules on the IMD website.

I will not let you lower an offer to a player just because someone got you to raise your bid & then backed out before the 1st bidding period ended.

So unless you rescind the offer on Brees before the 7am deadline the contracts listed above can not be offered.

I understand that everyone wants to make a last minute push for all of these guys but seriously offering everyone a 250k deal is a little ridiculous wouldn't you say?

[The Dirty Bird]

The revision to the contract made above isn't valid because it is a decrease from the contract that you initially offered to Brees the original containing a $15,000,000 cap hit which was 75% of your cap.

Robb actually went as far as to state this in the rules on the IMD website.

So unless you rescind the offer on Brees before the 7am deadline the contracts listed above can not be offered.

I understand that everyone wants to make a last minute push for all of these guys but seriously offering everyone a 250k deal is a little ridiculous wouldn't you say?

I believe you are misinterpreting Robb's rule which is not a new rule in the IMD.

If it were just the Jets and Seahawks bidding on Brees, I offered 12 million, they offered 14 million, I counter and offer 15 million and they back out essentially giving me Brees for 15 million before the first bidding period even begins --> I can not then amend my offer to $1 million dollars so that I get him for $1 million.

The Seahawks, Jets, 49ers, and Saints are all bidding. Me changing my bid does not impact what Brees will be signed for, which is the point. The point of the rule is you can't outbid everyone and scare them away from a player, then at the last second change the offer to the minimum and get your guy for the minimum.

Since that is what I believe to be the proper rule, the change does stand. This mainly happens so teams can make more offers to other players before the bidding period begins. Standard practice, but good for you for looking out for what you thought was the integrity of a bid.

[SBorBust]

Pittsburgh Steelers

OT Vernon Carey 1yr $250K

Year 1: $ 250,000 Base = $250,000

[Robb4242]

Free Agency Bidding is over. Check the website, any player with 1 bid (should be highlighted in yellow, but no guarantee) has been won by the bidding team. Players not bid on have been returned to their original club. And players with more than 1 bid (should be highlighted in Green, but again not a guarantee) are in the bid off phase. You cannot place another bid on a player that you did not have an active bid in on at 0700 EST this morning.

I will have a full list of players won & players in the bid off later this afternoon.

[TheDirtyWordII]

The Seattle Seahawks rescind their offer to WR Marques Colston.

[TheDirtyWordII]

The Seattle Seahawks rescind their offer to John Carlson.

[FalcoChicquera]

Cleveland rescind offers on:

Marshawn Lynch,

Wes Welker,

Pierre Garcon,

John Carlson,

Geoff Schwartz and

Jared Gaither

Cleveland signs:

Max Starks, Kraig Urbik,

Tim Hightower

(Remaining Cleveland Offers):

Peyton Hillis,

Mike Tolbert,

Vincent Jackson, Steve Johnson, Reggie Wayne, Brandon Lloyd,

Demetrius Bell, Anthony Collins

[Robb4242]

The Kansas City Chiefs would like to rescind their offer to QB Kyle Orton (Sorry rob i thought we would need a backup but a trade i had in place fell through)

The Chiefs make an offer to QB Matt Flynn

Role - Compete for starting job

5 year deal with a $10,000,000 signing bonus

Year 1 Base Salary: $1,000,000

Year 2 Base Salary: $2,000,000

Year 3 Base Salary: $3,000,000

Year 4 Base Salary: $4,000,000

Year 5 Base Salary: $5,000,000

Year 1 Cap Hit: $3,000,000

Total Salary: $25,000,000

I had missed that this was an invalid offer and because it was my mistake missing it, I felt I had to give the Chiefs a chance to correct their offer. I received a PM from the Chiefs at 7:47am to correct the offer. This is the new offer on the table from the Chiefs:

5 Year deal with a $5,000,000 signing bonus

Year 1: $2,000,000

Year 2: $3,000,000

Year 3: $4,000.000

Year 4: $5,000,000

Year 5: $6,000,000

Year 1 Cap hit: $3,000,000

Total Salary: $25,000,000

[agi5]

Cowboys rescind their offer to Kyle Orton as we won Drew Stanton in FA

Chiefs win Kyle Orton

Edited March 12, 2012 by agi5

[PapaJoe]

COLTS withdraw offer to Jared Gaither.

[PapaJoe]

COLTS modify offers to:

Geoff Schwartz - OT

5 year deal with a $2,500,000 signing bonus

Year 1 base Salary $500,000

Year 2 base salary $750,000

Year 3 base salary $1,000,000

Year 4 base salary $1,250,000

Year 5 base salary $1,500,000

Year 1 cap hit is $1,000,000

Total salary is $7,500,000

Matt Flynn - QB

6 year deal with a $9,000,000 signing bonus

Year 1 base Salary $3,000,000

Year 2 base salary $4,000,000

Year 3 base salary $5,000,000

Year 4 base salary $6,000,000

Year 5 base salary $7,000,000

Year 6 base salary $8,250,000

Year 1 cap hit is $4,500,000

Total salary is $42,250,000

Edited March 13, 2012 by m2Falcons

[SBorBust]

Vernon Carey should be awarded to the Steelers. I got the bid in before the 7am deadline.

[Robb4242]

This took me a lot longer than I thought it would. Too many interruptions. But anyway, I need everybody to go to this website and verify that I have all of the players that you are bidding on listed here. If there is anybody you think you are supposed to be bidding on and it's missing, let me know ASAP. I do not have all of the bid off updates from today (rescinds/upgraded bids, etc.) done yet, so don't worry about those. I just wanted make sure I have all of the players that were in the bidding and the players that were won before the bid off done.

Also, there is a running total here of the bids you have placed. A couple of teams have gone over their cap with bids (Denver, Philadelphia, New Orleans) and I need you to adjust bid off bids accordingly, either rescind or lower the bid ONLY enough to bring you even with the cap (you can spread this cut over multiple players; i.e. $250,000 cap hit cuts to 3 players to lower your total by $750,000). You must get under the cap ASAP or I will remove a player that you are in the bid off for to get you under the cap.

[Robb4242]

Vernon Carey should be awarded to the Steelers. I got the bid in before the 7am deadline.

I will get it updated tonight.

[PapaJoe]

Jets and Browns... I think I can safely speak for the other players in the game on this point... we would greatly appreciate you adjusting or withdrawing your current "placeholder bids" on the multitude of players you each have remaining under that format/approach. thank you.

[The Dirty Bird]

Jets and Browns... I think I can safely speak for the other players in the game on this point... we would greatly appreciate you adjusting or withdrawing your current "placeholder bids" on the multitude of players you each have remaining under that format/approach. thank you.

The purpose of those first days were to make initial offers to players you were interested in. If you wanted to see how the market formed, then you didn’t need to bid up during that period to drive the price higher unnecessarily. If you kept bidding up a player before hand all it did was drive his price up before the real bidding period which started yesterday and ends tonight at midnight. I can't speak for the Browns but I've been participating in the IMD for years.

Most "placeholder bids" -- if left as they are at a one year minimum deal -- wouldn't win a player anyway if there was another bid on him, so this doesn't affect you or any of the other players. This is actually in the written rules as a suggested thing to do because the real bidding period didn't start until yesterday. The first week or so was just for basically saying "I would like to be in the bidding on these players: x, y, z".

This isn't getting defensive, just explaining how it works. I'm sure all bids will be adjusted to more accurately reflect true interest.

[PapaJoe]

The COLTS withdraw offer to QB - Matt Flynn (the Chiefs get him)

Modify offer to:

Geoff Schwartz - OT

5 year deal with a $1,250,000 signing bonus

Year 1 base Salary $1,000,000

Year 2 base salary $2,000,000

Year 3 base salary $2,500,000

Year 4 base salary $3,250,000

Year 5 base salary $4,000,000

Year 1 cap hit is $1,250,000

Total salary is $14,000,000

Edited March 13, 2012 by m2Falcons

[jfalconsp]

The COLTS withdraw offer to QB - Matt Flynn (the Chiefs get him)

Modify offer to:

Geoff Schwartz - OT

5 year deal with a $1,250,000 signing bonus

Year 1 base Salary $1,000,000

Year 2 base salary $2,000,000

Year 3 base salary $2,500,000

Year 4 base salary $3,250,000

Year 5 base salary $4,000,000

Year 1 cap hit is $1,250,000

Total salary is $14,000,000

In the future, there is a Bid Off thread to post these in, not here.

[Robb4242]

The purpose of those first days were to make initial offers to players you were interested in. If you wanted to see how the market formed, then you didn’t need to bid up during that period to drive the price higher unnecessarily. If you kept bidding up a player before hand all it did was drive his price up before the real bidding period which started yesterday and ends tonight at midnight. I can't speak for the Browns but I've been participating in the IMD for years.

Most "placeholder bids" -- if left as they are at a one year minimum deal -- wouldn't win a player anyway if there was another bid on him, so this doesn't affect you or any of the other players. This is actually in the written rules as a suggested thing to do because the real bidding period didn't start until yesterday. The first week or so was just for basically saying "I would like to be in the bidding on these players: x, y, z".

This isn't getting defensive, just explaining how it works. I'm sure all bids will be adjusted to more accurately reflect true interest.

Before this debate has a chance to get out of hand let me say this. The intent was to allow teams to have a Plan A for Free Agency and a Plan B, maybe even a Plan C if there were a lot of bids on some players. But what I didn't anticipate was a shotgun approach, meaning throwing $250,000 bids on all of the top FAs at multiple positions. That isn't developing a team plan and then trying to make it work which is what teams have to do in the real world. Then again, what we're doing here & the way it was anticipated isn't like the real world either, so I can't really get upset with the way things are working out this year.

Everything that has been done has followed the rules of the game. But, it's a lesson learned for me and there will be a rule in place next year to limit the number of placeholder bids (1 per position maybe, I don't know yet). FalcoChiquera has been a huge help to me in this game, and I appreciate everything he's done, but I'm going to pick on him for a second. He has followed the rules to the letter in this game, but it shows how my rules for FA and the placeholder bid was flawed. I'm not upset at FalcoChiquera at all for using this loophole, it was my fault for not catching it.

Cleveland has placed 31 bids on free agents, all of them $250k each. Of those 31, he won 12 outright, the rest are in bid offs. He currently is in the bid off for 5 CB's, and he has already won 3 CB's (one was a resigning of his own player). That's a bit extreme for a Plan A/B scenario, especially since the team already has 1 pretty good CB on the roster & isn't losing any others in FA.

I'm sure you can see why some people are upset by this, but again, anybody else could have done the same thing. For this year, it works out that this is how it's going to be, but there will be changes for next year.

[Robb4242]

I believe you are misinterpreting Robb's rule which is not a new rule in the IMD.

If it were just the Jets and Seahawks bidding on Brees, I offered 12 million, they offered 14 million, I counter and offer 15 million and they back out essentially giving me Brees for 15 million before the first bidding period even begins --> I can not then amend my offer to $1 million dollars so that I get him for $1 million.

The Seahawks, Jets, 49ers, and Saints are all bidding. Me changing my bid does not impact what Brees will be signed for, which is the point. The point of the rule is you can't outbid everyone and scare them away from a player, then at the last second change the offer to the minimum and get your guy for the minimum.

Since that is what I believe to be the proper rule, the change does stand. This mainly happens so teams can make more offers to other players before the bidding period begins. Standard practice, but good for you for looking out for what you thought was the integrity of a bid.

This is the correct interpretation of the rule. What the rule is in place to prevent is for someone to offer a large contract to a player, let's say it's Brees. If the Jets put in a contract that paid Brees a Year 1 cap hit of $25M, and everyone else dropped out of the bidding, then at the last minute he dropped the bid down to $10M so he could place other bids just before the deadline, that is what the rule was to prevent.

At this point I'm not as concerned with someone dropping a offer when other teams are still bidding on a player, especially if he wasn't the highest bid or best offer to start with. I do see how you can read it as in all cases you can't drop bids, but that wasn't the intent.

[Robb4242]

In the future, there is a Bid Off thread to post these in, not here.

I had asked for the 2 FA threads to be locked by a mod, but it hasn't happened yet.

[The Dirty Bird]

Before this debate has a chance to get out of hand let me say this. The intent was to allow teams to have a Plan A for Free Agency and a Plan B, maybe even a Plan C if there were a lot of bids on some players. But what I didn't anticipate was a shotgun approach, meaning throwing $250,000 bids on all of the top FAs at multiple positions. That isn't developing a team plan and then trying to make it work which is what teams have to do in the real world. Then again, what we're doing here & the way it was anticipated isn't like the real world either, so I can't really get upset with the way things are working out this year.

Everything that has been done has followed the rules of the game. But, it's a lesson learned for me and there will be a rule in place next year to limit the number of placeholder bids (1 per position maybe, I don't know yet). FalcoChiquera has been a huge help to me in this game, and I appreciate everything he's done, but I'm going to pick on him for a second. He has followed the rules to the letter in this game, but it shows how my rules for FA and the placeholder bid was flawed. I'm not upset at FalcoChiquera at all for using this loophole, it was my fault for not catching it.

Cleveland has placed 31 bids on free agents, all of them $250k each. Of those 31, he won 12 outright, the rest are in bid offs. He currently is in the bid off for 5 CB's, and he has already won 3 CB's (one was a resigning of his own player). That's a bit extreme for a Plan A/B scenario, especially since the team already has 1 pretty good CB on the roster & isn't losing any others in FA.

I'm sure you can see why some people are upset by this, but again, anybody else could have done the same thing. For this year, it works out that this is how it's going to be, but there will be changes for next year.

I was more explaining what the Jets did. We had a ton of money wrapped up in pursuit of Drew Brees and were unclear of how that would work out -- so we kept our options open for Major Plan B, C, etc. along with the auxiliary signings.

I think the best thing for next year may be a maximum of 15 free agents can be bid on/won by a team. These would limit offers, and even if one team only made 15 bids of $250k that could not possibly be "in the running" for all of them because prices will escalate (unless they are 15 shlubs and then who cares).