Complicated cap conundrum: send Godwin for Barkley+?

[M-Dub]

This is kind of a long, convoluted situation, so I apologize in advance for the length of the post. Team 3 in sig. Salary cap/contract league. I’m in a one-year rebuild. Already piled up three 1sts and two 2nds in 2021. I have a ton of cap space with even more opening up this offseason. I have Godwin ($50/3 years) and CEH ($26/5 years) on really favorable deals, but not much else besides one-year rentals and a few rookies with potential. My plan was to suck this year and then overspend on a couple big free agents in next year‘s free agent auction to try to compete in 2021-2022, the last two years of Godwin’s deal.

The defending champ just lost Saquon ($120/2 years) and Sutton ($17/2 years) for the year, and we have an empire fund that gets triggered by back-to-back championships. I haven’t actually reached out to him yet, but I’m thinking he’d be open to trading Saquon+ for Godwin in a bid to cash in the empire fund. So basically, I was wondering if it would make sense to try to trade Godwin for Saquon+. I’m thinking I could possibly get a late 1st or possibly even Sutton on top of Saquon. Might have to send a late 2nd back.

The way our contracts work is after a player’s contract is up, he becomes a restricted FA. He goes into our annual FA auction, but the original owner retains the right to match the winning bid. High-end players typically go for $100-$125, so Saquon is already close to the max. If I want to retain Godwin after 2022, he’ll probably cost around $100+ too, assuming he continues to perform at an elite level.

Here are some of the notable RFAs who become available this offseason:
RB - Henry, Jacobs, Gurley, Conner, Gordon
WR - Keenan, Theilen, Fuller, Crowder, Parker, Dionte, Amari, Julio

It’s probably gonna cost $100+ to sign someone like Henry, Jacobs or Julio.

So mainly what I’m wondering is, given the league settings, is it worth it to give up two more years of Godwin on a cheap contract for one year of Barkley on a fair market value contract plus Sutton or a late 1st? This would also make my own 1st much more likely to be the 1.01 or 1.02.

I’m convinced that the way to win in this league is by locking up a handful of players on long, cheap deals (either as rookies or as FAs before they break out) and then overpaying for a couple proven FAs to create a 1-2 year title window.

If I keep Godwin, I could probably afford to overpay for two of Henry/Jacobs/Julio. If I trade for Saquon, I could probably lock up one of those guys, plus a second-tier guy like Gordon/Thielen/Amari, but I’d have Sutton or the extra late 1st too.

What say you, DLF? Should I try to trade for Saquon or hold tight with Godwin and stick to the original plan?

[Gator Sens]

I can see the benefit both ways here, but I would hold Godwin personally.

[abloom]

What are the starting requirements? How are rookies contracts done? Am I correct that the cap is $450 and 60 years?

[M-Dub]

What are the starting requirements? How are rookies contracts done? Am I correct that the cap is $450 and 60 years?

Yes. $450 cap. 60 contract years. You can sign rookies for 1-5 years. Rookie salary scale is as follows: 1.01 $35, 1.02 $26, 1.03 $21, 1.04 $17, 1.05 $14, 1.06 $12, 1.07 $11, 1.08 $10, 1.09 $9, 1.10 $8, 1.11 $7, 1.12 $6, 1.13 $5, 2.01-2.06 $4, 2.07-2.12 $3, 3.01-3.12 $2

Starting requirements are 8 total starters. 1QB and 1-4 WR/RB/TE. So while you can technically start only one RB, you’d have to start at least two TEs to do so. So it’s probably easiest to just think of it as a standard 1/2/2/1 league with two flex.

All waiver wire adds are $1/0 years and they become UFAs after the year. No matching rights. The 0 years seems weird, but it’s just so you can drop them without incurring a penalty. Any other drops incur a penalty of 40% of their salary for each year they have left. For example, I’m probably gonna cut Kerryon at the cut deadline prior to kickoff of week 8. At $50/2 years, that amounts to a $40 cap hit for the remainder of the season, but it goes away after this year.

[abloom]

Okay so just thinking, we'll ignore qb because it's 1 qb for now and just assume we spend about $15-20 on the position as a whole. So 430$ for 7 positions. Again single te with no premium, lets allocate another 15-20 there, possibly even less but let's round up. 410 for 6 positions. Get another $20 for depth, 390 for six positions, average of 65 per position. Which means hitting rbs is insane.

I'd hold what you have, use your firsts on bpa skewed towards rbs, and use your huge cap $ for wrs. It just seems like the rookie contracts are just way too good.

[M-Dub]

Okay so just thinking, we'll ignore qb because it's 1 qb for now and just assume we spend about $15-20 on the position as a whole. So 430$ for 7 positions. Again single te with no premium, lets allocate another 15-20 there, possibly even less but let's round up. 410 for 6 positions. Get another $20 for depth, 390 for six positions, average of 65 per position. Which means hitting rbs is insane.

I'd hold what you have, use your firsts on bpa skewed towards rbs, and use your huge cap $ for wrs. It just seems like the rookie contracts are just way too good.

That’s pretty much my strategy in a nutshell. This is my first salary cap league and I kinda botched the startup auction last year, so I found myself immediately behind the 8-ball. Managed to acquire three 1sts last year and basically did what you suggested. Took CEH at 1.02 (yay), Vaughn at 1.09 (oof) and Mims at 1.12 (tbd). Also got Edwards at 2.09, Herbert at 2.12 and Hamler and Trautman in the 3rd.

Initial talks with the Saquon owner didn’t really go anywhere. He seemed to feel like a straight swap was closer to fair value, and he balked at adding Sutton or a 1st. So I’m just proceeding with the original plan. Trying to stock up on rookies on the cheap and hope a few of them hit. If I sign any high-dollar FAs, it’ll likely be just for a year or two to minimize risk.

Funny you say that the rookie contracts are a great value. There were a few owners who actually felt they were too pricey. Haha. There was some back and forth, but I eventually convinced them that it’d be a lot easier to lower rookie salaries in the future and retroactively apply it to previously drafted rookies than to try to raise rookie salaries if we decide that they’re too expensive. Ultimately, I still think they’re a little too cheap, but I’m happy to use it to my advantage. Haha. The way I see it, even in the worst possible scenario where you completely whiffed on the 1.01 and signed him to a 5-year deal, you could still get out of it two years later for just a $42 cap hit for that year. That doesn’t seem too bad to me.

[abloom]

Okay so just thinking, we'll ignore qb because it's 1 qb for now and just assume we spend about $15-20 on the position as a whole. So 430$ for 7 positions. Again single te with no premium, lets allocate another 15-20 there, possibly even less but let's round up. 410 for 6 positions. Get another $20 for depth, 390 for six positions, average of 65 per position. Which means hitting rbs is insane.

I'd hold what you have, use your firsts on bpa skewed towards rbs, and use your huge cap $ for wrs. It just seems like the rookie contracts are just way too good.

That’s pretty much my strategy in a nutshell. This is my first salary cap league and I kinda botched the startup auction last year, so I found myself immediately behind the 8-ball. Managed to acquire three 1sts last year and basically did what you suggested. Took CEH at 1.02 (yay), Vaughn at 1.09 (oof) and Mims at 1.12 (tbd). Also got Edwards at 2.09, Herbert at 2.12 and Hamler and Trautman in the 3rd.

Initial talks with the Saquon owner didn’t really go anywhere. He seemed to feel like a straight swap was closer to fair value, and he balked at adding Sutton or a 1st. So I’m just proceeding with the original plan. Trying to stock up on rookies on the cheap and hope a few of them hit. If I sign any high-dollar FAs, it’ll likely be just for a year or two to minimize risk.

Funny you say that the rookie contracts are a great value. There were a few owners who actually felt they were too pricey. Haha. There was some back and forth, but I eventually convinced them that it’d be a lot easier to lower rookie salaries in the future and retroactively apply it to previously drafted rookies than to try to raise rookie salaries if we decide that they’re too expensive. Ultimately, I still think they’re a little too cheap, but I’m happy to use it to my advantage. Haha. The way I see it, even in the worst possible scenario where you completely whiffed on the 1.01 and signed him to a 5-year deal, you could still get out of it two years later for just a $42 cap hit for that year. That doesn’t seem too bad to me.

I should expand my answer. Rookie RB contracts are amazing. They produce faster and are easy to predict their value. Those early first round rookie RBs are great as long as you don't reach (like Vaughn).

Really if you look at it, the only misses recently were Guice and Penny, pretty sure all the other first round rbs (not counting Rojo here, he should have been a second, again don't reach) would have been at least worth their rookie contracts.

[M-Dub]

Yeah, our draft was in May, a couple weeks after the NFL draft. Matt Kelley and JJ Zachariason were both really high on Vaughn at the time, and I tend to trust those guys. I still think he’s better than RoJo (not saying much, I know), so I’m hoping Lenny is just a one-year rental for the Bucs. Worst case, if he turns out to be a total bust, at least his contract is cheap. But yeah, I’d love to have a mulligan on that pick and have Reagor or Shenault instead.