Restructuring Contracts

[Mattphillies]

Hey everyone!

Really enjoying the game this year but I’ve found the work they did with contracts, specifically how they laid out cap hits in long term contracts to be quite worrisome. If you use a team like the Eagles, you’re going to enter the offseason with practically no cap space whatsoever unless you start releasing very good players. In some ways this is a good simulation of real life - teams have to make tough financial decisions every year to free up cap space - but I think they went a little overboard with their intent. Too much money was put into the 2nd year cap hits and not enough into the first. The Eagles just aren’t going to be releasing Malcolm Jenkins, Brandon Brooks, Alshon Jeffery etc.

They do however masterfully construct and restructure contracts every year so there’s always room in the budget to keep their own priority free agents, extend drafted players, and dip a toe or two into the free agent market. In Madden, there’s just no way to do this, until I found a little trick.

If you want to create a little wiggle room for the first two offseasons or so without straight up changing a player’s contract to something else entirely (which feels like cheating to me), simply go into the Edit Contract tab of a player with a big money long term deal and move the current year of the deal to the left or right and then back again. This will redistribute the cap hits throughout the contract to a more evenly balanced backloaded deal, freeing up money on next year’s cap in just about every case. You can do this to as many players with multi-year deals as you want. Money will be pushed into your current year’s cap, but I’ve found you can actually operate the first year OVER the cap if needed and you won’t be prompted to cut anyone. You can free up just a few million if you’d like or for some teams over 20 million.

Be advised, just like in real life, you’re pushing some money further down the line so be mindful of who you’re “restructuring” because you could end up taking a bigger bath on a guy you were intending to cut in a year or two.

I find this method to be the closest thing to “restructuring” contracts in Madden that we’ll get so I hope this helps someone out there as much as it’s helped me and my Eagles franchise.

Thanks and enjoy the game everyone!

P.S. Read Geodude’s Franchise Tips every year - that dude is a hall of famer!

[Ueauvan]

id like the ability to use some free cap space in year 1 to alleviate year 2/3/4 by giving guaranteed and decreasing salary in those years or maybe slightly less, ie money now is better then later. so for example i have 20m cap space. why cant i increase my stud wr bonus in year 1 by 5m and lower his salary next year by 5m. o creat a decreasing contract pay more when i have cap space now etc. flexibility is the key and madden doesnt offer it. its not difficult code but it seems it is for ea, same as 5th year options, rfas etc. nick mullens wants 4 yr 44m with 30m guaranteed as Jimmy G's back up in 2020, a 69 ovr. a team player would help restructure, better players on team more chance to win etc. loyalty/team ethos/personality etc have impact but not in ea

[steelheat226]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mattphillies

Hey everyone! Really enjoying the game this year but I’ve found the work they did with contracts, specifically how they laid out cap hits in long term contracts to be quite worrisome. If you use a team like the Eagles, you’re going to enter the offseason with practically no cap space whatsoever unless you start releasing very good players. In some ways this is a good simulation of real life - teams have to make tough financial decisions every year to free up cap space - but I think they went a little overboard with their intent. Too much money was put into the 2nd year cap hits and not enough into the first. The Eagles just aren’t going to be releasing Malcolm Jenkins, Brandon Brooks, Alshon Jeffery etc. They do however masterfully construct and restructure contracts every year so there’s always room in the budget to keep their own priority free agents, extend drafted players, and dip a toe or two into the free agent market. In Madden, there’s just no way to do this, until I found a little trick. If you want to create a little wiggle room for the first two offseasons or so without straight up changing a player’s contract to something else entirely (which feels like cheating to me), simply go into the Edit Contract tab of a player with a big money long term deal and move the current year of the deal to the left or right and then back again. This will redistribute the cap hits throughout the contract to a more evenly balanced backloaded deal, freeing up money on next year’s cap in just about every case. You can do this to as many players with multi-year deals as you want. Money will be pushed into your current year’s cap, but I’ve found you can actually operate the first year OVER the cap if needed and you won’t be prompted to cut anyone. You can free up just a few million if you’d like or for some teams over 20 million. Be advised, just like in real life, you’re pushing some money further down the line so be mindful of who you’re “restructuring” because you could end up taking a bigger bath on a guy you were intending to cut in a year or two. I find this method to be the closest thing to “restructuring” contracts in Madden that we’ll get so I hope this helps someone out there as much as it’s helped me and my Eagles franchise. Thanks and enjoy the game everyone! P.S. Read Geodude’s Franchise Tips every year - that dude is a hall of famer!

Very interesting to know. The Steelers do the exact same thing. So after I slide the years, do I save anything? Or can I just exit?

[Shards]

This is a nice idea. The contracts that current players have can be quite a bit different than the Madden structure. This is probably taking the full amount and redistributing the money like EA does for all of their contracts. They always backload contracts.

[Funkycorm]

You could do this on 18 as well. Change the year and changing back would lower their cap hit but not change the money total. It was a nice little trick to get a little extra in cap room. Though players on 7 year contracts it would not work on.

[Mattphillies]

Quote: Originally Posted by steelheat226

Very interesting to know. The Steelers do the exact same thing. So after I slide the years, do I save anything? Or can I just exit?

Yep, save after that. You’ll see the cap hits are more evenly distributed now, instead of how they manually set them up in the default rosters.

[Mattphillies]

Quote: Originally Posted by Shards

This is a nice idea. The contracts that current players have can be quite a bit different than the Madden structure. This is probably taking the full amount and redistributing the money like EA does for all of their contracts. They always backload contracts.

Yeah that’s the idea. It’s still backloaded but distributed more evenly. For some reason a lot of the contracts have waaaaaay more money tied up in the middle years than they should and it’s putting a few teams in cap hell with no way out other than cutting really good players. It was taking away from my enthusiasm for my Eagles franchise until I thought of messing with the “current” year tab to see if that would change the cap hits to a more traditional Madden contract structure and I was so happy I was right! Really hope this helps others out there and I apologize if this was already well known.

[Mattphillies]

Quote: Originally Posted by Funkycorm

You could do this on 18 as well. Change the year and changing back would lower their cap hit but not change the money total. It was a nice little trick to get a little extra in cap room. Though players on 7 year contracts it would not work on.

Awesome! I also saw in the patch notes that bonus money won’t be distributed past the 5th year per NFL rules so I’m sure that has a bearing on this