I've seen a few members deploy this strategy, so let me start by saying I don't care that people play the game within the bounds of its design. If you find a way to exploit the system then all the more to you...

However, it greatly takes away from the authenticity of the game

How can a team realistically have 60 players under contract - the hefty majority of which are 2nd or 3rd year players with upwards of 80 or 90 potential - lock them up for 5 years, and still remain 30 mil under the cap? It's ludicrous

I'm not sure what the solution is? Maybe players need to have more leverage in contract negotiations? Maybe even holdouts?

In any case, it doesn't bother me so much as long as I can still build-out a decent roster, but come on man - we all sign up for this to compete as GMs in a realistic environment and this sort of strategy is just bogus

How is any strategy related to how you build your roster "bogus"?

Everyone has the same opportunities as everyone else. I don't consider playing within the rules that have been put in place to be exploiting the system in any way.

When I am in an allocation draft, I personally prefer to draft younger players with good potential rather than drafting a good, but old player. I don't consider that to be "bogus", as many other owners do the same thing, and ALL of them could if they wanted to.

In the first draft I was a part of, I did the opposite and drafted players with the highest "current" rating I could find. I won my division that first year, but realized I would have some rebuilding to do pretty soon. I decided to change my strategy, and it's worked pretty well for me.

I learned from experience. Just because others learned before me doesn't mean they were doing anything wrong or "bogus".

I just wish I could get in on an allocation draft. Only been playing a couple weeks so everything is looking like rebuilding projects.

This is very much a goal to make this difficult to do, but as you have discovered there currently is within the bounds of the engine the ability to stock your roster. My goal is to make it hard to keep your roster stocked, but as you say once you lock these players up to a long term contract it becomes difficult; at this point I'm hoping that it will become increasingly difficult to re-sign that many starters. I'm cautious in implementing these changes because if the pendulum swings too far that way then you'll be able to keep only a few star players, but I am playing with that logic continually. I am also seriously considering adding holdout logic for underpaid players, not sure when I'll start exploring that but it is definitely on the docket.

Its because of this you don't get owners to stay in leagues either.

Why stay and put the effort in when the most you are going to get is a playoff berth? I am going to be dropping out of couple leagues in a few seasons for this reason as well. Ive gotten more joy playing in the MFN leagues because the teams are more evenly set and you don't have all the loaded rosters.

My issue has always been with the salary cap and the fact that no team in the NFL can conceivably be 40 million under the cap and still be competing for championships .. that's the realism that this game loses.

Congrats to those who found the work around for that .. you are the reason a lot of players just quit.

With the exception of MFN-1, all of the other leagues are identical, with the exception of the team names in the CUST leagues. Unless of course you are talking about how the teams are formed, either by an allocation draft or the AI just randomly putting players on teams.

I completeley understand why someone, especially a new owner, would want to stay away from a team put together by the AI (because the way the AI evaluates players stinks).

I will never pick up another team where I am not able to participate in the allocation draft due to the nearly impossible task of building through the regular drafts. You have to either trade away all your early round picks, or tank, in order to get a good young player.

I think one of the main reasons people don't stick around is because they don't evaluate the team they are taking over before "becoming owner". I've suggested before that a message should appear advising the new owner to check the roster, salary cap, draft picks, etc., before confirming they want to take over the team. Seems like a very easy addition that would go a long way to help new owners from picking a bad team.

Also, people who spend time learning this game are always going to have more success than those that don't. You're always going to have people leave just because they aren't winning regardless of anything else.

It's definitely an interesting balance, because the other side of the coin is teams who get into cap trouble because they aren't paying attention and overspending on free agents, and then abandoning their team when they have to let all their good players go, or leaving their team only for a new player to come in and realize that he can't re-sign most of his roster.

I want to keep the conversation going on this topic because I am continually tweaking the contract requests and draft pick contracts to try to inch more toward a better balance. It just takes several seasons to really see the impact of these tweaks and can be really easy to over-adjust.

Are you seriously scolding players that are using very basic strategies? There's no exploit going on, there's no cheating, it's not rocket science. What do you suggest owners do instead?

I don't understand why you haven't added a message to an owner before they take over a team advising them to evaluate the team first.

I would rather see a team managed by the AI, than for a new owner to come in only to then realize the team is in bad shape, and then abandon it. Or maybe just give owners the ability to "leave" a team, or switch to another one.

Read the whole quote instead of one statement from it. If you think the inference is cheating .. you read it wrong.