I'm the commissioner of 14 team contract/salary cap league. The league has several detailed features including Restricted Free Agents and Franchise players which give teams the right to match the top bids on their top players and also for the younger players. These RFA/FR auctions are done prior to unrestricted free agency and the rookie draft. Prior to any of the auctions teams are to declare who they are going to keep as their RFAs and pick one franchise players if they want. They are also given the opportunity to cut players to clear up salary cap room for the offseason.
This offseason has been a crazy one for me as I graduated, got licensed and started a new career, so the league offseason had to be put together and started quickly because the entire offseason takes approximately 6 weeks to complete. As soon as I filled open league spots, I gave teams about 5 days to post who they were keeping and who they were cutting. One team, we'll call him Owner A, did not submit his keepers prior to the deadline and had not been responding to emails though he had recently posted on the league message board. Owner A has been an active owner for nearly a decade in leagues that I have ran, so I have to give him the benefit of doubt. So with the RFA/FR auctions starting, I made his keepers for him but did not release any players. Owner A was the league champion last year partially due to the fact that he both Lagarrett Blount and Peyton Hillis for a cheap amount. Those are the two players at the center of all the turmoil. Blount was eligible for RFA (no compensation) and Hillis was made his Franchise player (1st or 2nd round pick depending on final bid). I don't think that there are any issues with these selections.
With the auctions starting Blount and Hillis were two of the first players nominated and bid on. As the bidding went on, it was clear that Owner A couldn't keep both Blount and Hillis, so I had to make a decision of what to do. My decision was to wait as long as we could and see if the owner returned in time to make a decision. I gave Owner A an additional day to see if he would match the offer for Hillis, but he was not back in time. At that time I decided that Hillis would not be matched but Blount would be since Hillis would get Owner A compensation. That deadline I gave Owner A expired early this morning and I posted my decision. Owner A would receive the #17 pick in the rookie draft. Not much but better than the nothing he would have gotten from letting Blount go.
Of course a few hours after this happened, the auction for Blount ended and Owner A returned not knowing what happened. He had not gotten any of the emails that I sent and had been on vacation for the last week or so. He didn't know that the league was going to go this quickly into the offseason but did see that teams were posting their keepers before he left. I was at work and have only been able to get bits and pieces from him through an email and some message board posts. But following his return, he dropped Cedric Benson which opened up enough cap space for him to potentially keep both Blount and Hillis. This has caused a chain reaction involving a few other owners.
Owner B was the eventual winner of the Hillis auction and was award him after it was not matched. Though he told me that he would have bid more on Blount if Hillis had been matched. He was determined that he would get either Hillis or Blount no matter the price. So when he won Hillis, he backed off on Blount...
Owner C was the eventual winner of the Blount auction. He saw the situation at hand and decided that Owner A was not going to match an offer for Blount. So as a result of that, he traded away Ray Rice to Owner B. But in the aftermath of what happened this morning, he stated that he wouldn't have traded Rice if knew that Blount would get matched.
So I'm stuck with several owners likely to be upset with me:
Team A likely will want to keep both Hillis and Blount since he has the cap space.
Team B may be upset if he has to lose Hillis and very upset if he loses Hillis and the Rice trade is reversed.
Team C seems to be upset Team A could drop a player to free up cap room to match on Blount and wouldn't have traded Rice if he knew that.
If you made it this far through this mess, what do I do about this? My gut feeling is to leave it as is because any changes are just going to have a ripple effect and cause more problems. I'd like to get some outside opinions on this situation.
This offseason has been a crazy one for me as I graduated, got licensed and started a new career, so the league offseason had to be put together and started quickly because the entire offseason takes approximately 6 weeks to complete. As soon as I filled open league spots, I gave teams about 5 days to post who they were keeping and who they were cutting. One team, we'll call him Owner A, did not submit his keepers prior to the deadline and had not been responding to emails though he had recently posted on the league message board. Owner A has been an active owner for nearly a decade in leagues that I have ran, so I have to give him the benefit of doubt. So with the RFA/FR auctions starting, I made his keepers for him but did not release any players. Owner A was the league champion last year partially due to the fact that he both Lagarrett Blount and Peyton Hillis for a cheap amount. Those are the two players at the center of all the turmoil. Blount was eligible for RFA (no compensation) and Hillis was made his Franchise player (1st or 2nd round pick depending on final bid). I don't think that there are any issues with these selections.
With the auctions starting Blount and Hillis were two of the first players nominated and bid on. As the bidding went on, it was clear that Owner A couldn't keep both Blount and Hillis, so I had to make a decision of what to do. My decision was to wait as long as we could and see if the owner returned in time to make a decision. I gave Owner A an additional day to see if he would match the offer for Hillis, but he was not back in time. At that time I decided that Hillis would not be matched but Blount would be since Hillis would get Owner A compensation. That deadline I gave Owner A expired early this morning and I posted my decision. Owner A would receive the #17 pick in the rookie draft. Not much but better than the nothing he would have gotten from letting Blount go.
Of course a few hours after this happened, the auction for Blount ended and Owner A returned not knowing what happened. He had not gotten any of the emails that I sent and had been on vacation for the last week or so. He didn't know that the league was going to go this quickly into the offseason but did see that teams were posting their keepers before he left. I was at work and have only been able to get bits and pieces from him through an email and some message board posts. But following his return, he dropped Cedric Benson which opened up enough cap space for him to potentially keep both Blount and Hillis. This has caused a chain reaction involving a few other owners.
Owner B was the eventual winner of the Hillis auction and was award him after it was not matched. Though he told me that he would have bid more on Blount if Hillis had been matched. He was determined that he would get either Hillis or Blount no matter the price. So when he won Hillis, he backed off on Blount...
Owner C was the eventual winner of the Blount auction. He saw the situation at hand and decided that Owner A was not going to match an offer for Blount. So as a result of that, he traded away Ray Rice to Owner B. But in the aftermath of what happened this morning, he stated that he wouldn't have traded Rice if knew that Blount would get matched.
So I'm stuck with several owners likely to be upset with me:
Team A likely will want to keep both Hillis and Blount since he has the cap space.
Team B may be upset if he has to lose Hillis and very upset if he loses Hillis and the Rice trade is reversed.
Team C seems to be upset Team A could drop a player to free up cap room to match on Blount and wouldn't have traded Rice if he knew that.
If you made it this far through this mess, what do I do about this? My gut feeling is to leave it as is because any changes are just going to have a ripple effect and cause more problems. I'd like to get some outside opinions on this situation.
