New to Madden - Help with Salary Cap, Trading, Scouting, etc.

[jolson88]

Hey all! With the news of the College Football franchise, I figured it was well past the time for me to make the jump to running franchises in Madden . So I picked up Madden 25.

But after being so used to the College system (some recruiting but only 4 years of players), I'm brand new to this idea of contracts, trading, salary cap, etc. I don't understand anything about how penalties work when cutting players, best approaches (minimize signing bonuses?), etc.

Are there good resources out there that folks know about that I can get up to speed with? I just started a Raiders franchise and am moving them to Portland, OR as the Portland Lumberjacks :P.

[preaceps]

Contracts-
Contracts have 2 aspects. Base salary and signing bonus. Signing bonus is paid up front from your ready cash(in owner mode) and is spread out over the coarse of the contract for salary hit purposes. Base Salary is non-guaranteed money that you are promising the player.
So if you give someone a 5million dollar base salary and 10 million dollar signing bonus over a 5yr contract. You would have a 1million dollar base salary and 2million signing bonus for total cap hit of 3million. The 10 million would be deducted from your ready funds immediately upon signing the contract though.

Trading-
This is pretty straight forward. Any offer will either get back not interested in *** player, not willing to trade **** player, need significantly more value, slightly more value, and accepted. Basically in that order. The value is based on percieved draft position when considering draft picks, and team need on players. Meaning in their needs they want a HB, then they would value your 80 HB as higher than your 80 WR.

If you trade away your players with signing bonus still counting, like if you traded the player above after 2yrs, 3yrs remaining, then you will take the remaining bonus in a penalty the next year.

IE 2013 sign 5yr contract above, play 2014, trade him in 2015. Then 2015 would still have the 2 million that was from him on salary cap hit, then 2016 you would have 4million in "dead" money. A penalty from trading away the player with bonus still remaining. This same system is used when cutting a player.

Signing bonuses are good for players that you know you dont want to trade away. IE lower base salary but higher bonus in order to keep his TOTAL cap hit lower.

Salary Cap-
Total maximum amount that you can pay your players, from a team standpoint. IE 120million cap is maximum your contracts can add up to.

[jolson88]

Thanks a bunch! I think that helps a lot .

Let's see if I understand it.

Let's say my team has a 48 million left in cap in 2014 and 30 million in open funds. I sign a player to a 4-year contract for 8 million base salary / 12 million in bonus. The 12 million bonus is deducted from my open funds immediately (leaving me 18 million open funds). For 2014, my available-to-cap is then lowered from 48 million to 43 million (2 million base salary per year and 3 million bonus per year).

Now we enter 2015 (his second year) and I cut him from the team. For 2015, my available-to-cap will remain 43 million like in 2014 (assuming no other changes on team). The cut will free up the 2 million base salary from my cap. However, he had two years left on his bonus. So, at 3 million per year bonus, I take a one-time hit of 6 million to my available cap in 2016. So my available cap is actually at 42 million for 2016 (the original 48 million minus the 6 million cap hit for remaining bonus for the cut player). Then in 2017, it would be back to 48 million.

Does that sound right? If so, that helps me a TON. Now to just to go do some research on scouting and the draft .

[preaceps]

Yes, that sounds right. Also take note that your salary cap room automatically will take into effect the cost of rookie contracts. The new CBA basically gives them contracts based on draft position. So for example 5th overall pick always gets 3million a year contract. It will automatically take that out for when you see it on your screen for each pick. So if you trade for more picks, or move up in picks it will affect your salary cap space.