I think it used to be one and two year contracts and he upped it a little. Perhaps throwing some 3 or 4 year contracts in there would hurt. Especially for higher rated players. Well maybe not if they bust hard

Looking at a new league, 3 players got 4 year contracts and 8 got 3 year contracts .. The rest got 2.

Thank you for the correction! LOL

This is actually what has always been -attempted- with the AI logic. The problem comes as someone mentioned that I've not been able to come up with a set of rules that seems to work.

Players make requests based on other salaries in the league + a base distribution of salaries based on position. The AI will offer players the salary that they request, and should not make requests that take them over the cap. (If the AI is indeed signing to go over the cap then that's behavior that broke at some point, because that was always intended to be a requirement for AI signings). The AI will also try to retain all of its players unless they are asking more than the AI can fit under his cap. The problem that I've found is that all of this, when you are a human, has a great degree of intuition that I've not found a way to programmatically simulate.

In general, the FA algorithm is below. Note that this is different than the roster size check algorithm which will cut players to get the cap low enough to fill a minimum roster size, but as the players get cut we run the FA algorithm. This is also the FA algorithm, except for step #1, that will be run if a human controlled team is below the minimum roster count.

1. Check to see if any players are in their last year of a multi-year contract and have a future value of greater than 50, and if we have the cap room to make the offer, then offer them the contract.
2. Check how many more players we need to get to minimum roster size and set our max offer to be equal to the remaining cap room divided by that.
3. If our max offer is less than the minimum salary offer, we do nothing more.
4. Count the number of players in each position, and compare this against the recommended players at each position to assign each position a weight ("position" here is actually a position group, i.e. OL as opposed to C, G, T, etc)
5. Also as a weight is the importance of each player (i.e. we may not pursue a FB even if we have no FB unless there is a very good FB available).
6. Using #4 and #5, each position is given a weight, and that is applied to the available free agents by multiplying the position weight with the future value to determine who is priority to sign.
7. Whoever is at the top of this list gets an offer, and this is repeated until we run out of cap room or have the maximum roster size.

I find the biggest issue is #5 in this list, as the algorithm is very complicated already. Probably just needs to be rewritten and simplified. Some of the ability to simplify this calculation is riding on an update to the website itself that will make it easier to manage the calculations.

What about taking morre account for the players ability to play multiple positions well . Then taking that really good FB, who could play rb, te, wr, and G quite well , would carry more weight than just searching for a fb/rb alone? That if 7 am understanding it correctly .

Most experienced owners would switch them / play them at other positions as well. I am not saying have him changed to a G , but that should carry some weight.

Really building to roster specifications based off the position distribution or group could hurt a team , only cause I think groups might be too small. But to put the best players on the field you got to get the best players . Draft or FA or reneg. After that just let a team have 10 wrs and let the AI slot accordingly . The out of position penalties are that severe . And when a user picks them up they could change Thier position .

And the AI is always going to lose out if it's not front loading contracts for elite to better players . Nobody is going down due to a career ending injury so why not, unless you plan on trading the player in the near future. But in terms of available cap now it's probably millions over time .

Also the lower a player is rated the shorter and less bonus laden it should be. Let that 50, 60 or even 70 test the market , but this will require an adjustment of weights . My reserve rbs are a good 20 points above from defaults .

Age should factor in as well. Like the trade meter, as that guy ages I know his speed will drop so an 80 rated skill player that old should not always be resigned . Thier championship puzzle pieces not something to build your team around . If he's in his 4th year at the reneg. It's a completely different story.

Weights and contracts are not completely inseparable. Weights absolutely need work asap, but a quick and dirty improvement to contracts would be:

For any renegotiated contract, average the ask with a 6-year - minimum bonus, with first year salary = bonus/18

I'd bet AI team finances would start looking a lot better, and when I bet, it's not gambling. :)

I like that for only young elite and pretty good players , and it hurts the trading team financially cause they have to eat that bonus. Adjusting the weights would make a big difference , but change them to what? I see the speed ratings needing a huge boost. So big the skill ratings need to be dropped for specific positions .

This is for players that the AI is going to re-sign anyway. I agree that poor strategic player analysis is part of the problem, but I don't see it as a reason to not do this.

Those 6-years are what I use. I have never had a problem eating a minimum bonus. The 6-year contract just amortizes it. So what if the player retires after two years? I would have had to pay the same minimum bonus on a 2-year contract.

Some fairly simple hard rules could help with figuring out WHO the AI should re-sign, without exhaustive analysis. For example:

• Don't re-sign RBs, WRs, or DBs -
  if they are past six years, with speed OR overall less than 70;
  OR at any age if they have speed less than 70 AND overall less than 70.


• Don't re-sign tackles, linebackers, FBs or TEs -
  if they are past nine years, with speed OR overall less than 65;
  OR at any age if they have speed less than 65 AND overall less than 65.


• Don't re-sign any player if experience + ask years is more than 14.

From what I've seen, these sample rules aren't as stringent as most good owners criteria. I'm not aiming to make this system fair or perfect, just better.

Would doing this put a lot more junk on the FA market? Yes.

Should the AI be picking up junk off the FA market for minimum 1-year or 6-year contracts, to fill up rosters instead of what it's doing now? Yes. 1, or 6, or no offer at all.

Would an improved sliding scale of junk based on further in-depth analysis of actual human owners behavior be better than the current sliding scale of junk with the addition of simple hard rules? Maybe, ... but there will be too few, or too many, opinions, and I'm exhausted just thinking about it, and it won't get done.

I like these generalizations , and the idea of a sliding scale thing.

For skill positions , my weights essentially have thier overall rarely higher than speed rating. But for line play my weights are pretty wacky . Speed is valued , but I signed a old DT with sub 20 speed and acceleration cause his pass rush and run defense were 100. My line play weight are really wacky cause there ends up being alot of servicable ones compared to the skill players.

When letting the AI do an allocation under them they end up scoring the Oline too high. the AI weights need a balance so guys get picked at the right times. Probably one of the most difficult things for me to find right now. I turn off Oline draft selecting for at least the first 10 rounds of the draft. Lately , I have found leaving them off for the first 30 rounds is enough to stay pretty competitive . In LoLs we did this and we're currently undefeated . elite Oline has to matter more or I think changing the weights could be a cat a mouse game hard to get right at times of clear code discrepancies .

This is why I let them test the market . Some guys are worth the bonus even if they retire, especially if your making that push for the bowl and you got the cap room.

But most times these fringe players are built for my stlye and I get them for cheaper . ..sometimes for pennies in comparison . And when they do go to another team most times they don't repeat the success they had with us. That stuff ends up Kinda realistic