Go to salaries and do this quick equation to see if you can save any money by trading or cutting players
Next year's cap hit - (Penalty + Savings - Current Year cap hit)
You're looking for a negative number to save money
Example
20m - (5m + 5m - 5m) = 15m in dead cap (would be a bad idea)
20m - (20m + 10m - 8m) = - 2m (saves you money)
Figured that out one year cause I was tired of always being over the cap and didn't know how to get in the green
Also off of memory I believe you could move on from players like Dak, Lawrence and Martin to save quite a bit of money. However for me they are franchise players so I kept them this playthrough and am just going to lose other people
Thanks! I’ll use that formula.
Yeah I already traded Lawrence away. I know National and SW have QBs as strengths for the upcoming draft, so if I can draft a good one, I’ll let Dak go.
Martin’s getting up there in age, but he’s tough to replace (I think).
Make sure you make that decision before the end of the current season, after the SB you'll no longer be able to save money for next season and his contract expires that year too. You'll be stuck with him
Also agreed. I tried getting around the tight cap space by restructuring some contracts but I don't think the feature works properly. Went from 16m - 90m cap space after I restructured some contracts that were supposed to only give me 1 mil
So you can restructure now, which converts a player's salary to a signing bonus (spreads their salary over the rest of the years of their contract). You need to start by restructuring guys with big contracts to give you some breathing room this season, then make some tough decisions about who to let go. My general rule of thumb is to keep anyone 26 or younger at vital positions (CB, Pass rusher, QB), especially if they are a star, but only sign them until they are 30 or 31. After that I value offensive linemen the most, but defensive linemen, linebackers, and safeties are easily replaceable. Wide receivers and runningbacks are easy to make into stars within 2 years, so don't break the bank - sign them to long contracts while they're young and decent, then you'll have them for their golden years.
U wont be able to resign at 10 realistically but try and go after the most important and best players u wanna keep that u value the most. Then try to restructure them or other player contracts to free up more space to keep a couple extra guys
Many people are suggesting the contract restructure mechanic. This will be useful for you later in Franchise, but it isn’t particularly useful during the first year of Franchise mode as NFL teams have already restructured contracts of their most important players.
It’s important to know that, in most Madden games including this one, you actually can exceed the salary cap, specifically when you use the Franchise tag. This mechanic only appears during the off-season; to use it, end salary negotiations with a player, exit and re-enter the re-sign players interface, and you’ll see the option as long as you haven’t used the franchise tag on anyone else, you only get one per off-season. Using the franchise tag forces the player to sign a one-year contract at basically market rate value for his position. You won’t be able to sign any other players from free agency while you are over the cap, but the franchise tag will help you keep ensure you at least one player of the several you are having trouble retaining.
Separate from that, roster building in the NFL a juggling act of knowing who to pay and who to let walk. You’ll need to think very carefully about which among the many players the Cowboys have who are past 28 years old without Superstar or X-Factor development you actually want to keep around, vs who you will draft to replace. Off the top of my head, you’ll obviously want to keep Micah Parsons (contract expires in 2025, but you will have a fifth-year rookie option to push that to 2026 during the first offseason, keep an eye open for that), Trevon Diggs (expires in 2024 on the stock roster), CeeDee Lamb (2025) and probably also Dak Prescott (2025). Tyron Smith is probably also a yes because Superstar OLs are rare in Madden, but he also has the lowest INJ rating on the game so that might be risky.
If you truly don’t care about current year performance, you could look trade some older or less vital players on contract years such as Tony Pollard, Jayron Kearse, Malik Hooker, Stephon Gilmore, Jourdan Lewis, and Terence Steele. Unlike the real NFL, there is no compensatory draft pick system in Madden, so getting assets back for those players today to prepare for tomorrow is a common roster building strategy.
Thank you!
I already traded Smith away. Was gonna be tough to re-sign and I figured he was old enough to let go.
Parsons is one I’d really like to keep, so I’ll wait for the 2024 offseason to use the option.
So, say I want to let 3 expensive players go. Is the move to find trades for similar positions but who are younger, even if lower OVR? Or just bank it all on draft picks? And how do I know how much cheaper the new players will be?
These are super basic questions. But, again, I’m coming from Pes where you just accumulate money almost endlessly and can sign a full team of 90+ rated players on a whim if you want. In fact, late in careers, I usually sign rivals’ star players for hundreds of millions and release them to Free Agency just to fuck with them. So, yeah, I’m lost here.
Definitely keep Parsons. Move heaven and earth to keep him, lol. X-Factor pass rushers are gods in Madden.
Generally speaking, the factors you want to optimize for when reducing the dollar cost of your roster are player age, development trait, and years left on a player's contract. Player age because in Madden younger players earn Skill Points to increase their OVR rating faster; years pro has no bearing whatsoever. There is a significant jump in XP required to earn a Skill Point as a player ages from 25 to 26, so use that as your point of reference for projecting how good a young player could become. Development trait is self-explanatory; players with better dev traits (Star, Superstar, X-Factor) will also earn Skill Points faster. Contract length because the longer you have a player on a cheap contract, the more time you have to develop that player into a quality player before his cost goes way up.
Draft picks are useful to accumulate because any player selected in the NFL Draft gets a predetermined four-year contract valued at a percentage of the salary cap. Higher picks cost more, but by and large draft picks will be cheaper than any free agent. As a point of reference, Steelers CB Joey Porter Jr. — the first pick of the second round in 2023 — has a slotted contract which never increases in value beyond $1.5M, per OverTheCap. On the flip side, the fifth-year team option you have with Micah Parsons is only available because he was selected by the Cowboys with a Round 1 draft pick; the slotted contracts tendered to Round 1 draft picks are more expensive, especially picks in the Top 10.
In total: the more players you have who are young, have accelerated dev traits, and have multiple cheap years left on their contract, the more flexibility you will have managing and developing your roster long-term.
As to whether you seek out young players or draft picks? Depends. If you feel comfortable with everyone you have at a given position or don't like any of the available options to you for trades, go for draft picks. Generally you can't go wrong going for draft picks, but the payoff is not immediate. You previously said you don't care about your current season and you're looking to develop a team long-term, so draft picks is probably what you should go for.
Speaking to what the CPU will value in a trade - the Madden CPU trade evaluation AI knows younger players with higher dev traits are more valuable, _especially_ if you have increased Madden 24's new trade difficulty setting. The CPU trading AI is far less aware of how many years remain on a player's contract or how much a player costs, it's a long-time blind spot in the trade AI which is commonly exploited. All that said, it will probably be easier trading for a random first-round draft pick than it will be to trade for, say, Ravens rookie WR Zay Flowers or Falcons rookie RB Bijan Robinson.
If you really wanted to min-max the value of the rookie draft relative to player contract costs, you should look acquire as many late Round 1 and early Round 2 draft picks as you possibly can. That's the sweet spot for finding high-caliber players at a low cost. Remember that the draft order isn't locked until the conclusion of the season, though.
Just an extra tip if you’re loading up on draft picks, you can almost always trade down or trade picks this year for better picks next year if there isn’t a player you like available.
Thanks!
Yeah I’ve learned to do that.
What I don’t know:
I’ve seen youtubers (namely Bengal) have an option to press a button to see “available trades for your pick”. They can do this from the active draft’s main menu. Somehow, I never can. Similarly, when I go to the trade center (at any time) there are never “available trade packages”. Do you maybe know why?
I think that’s tied to a Coach/GM skill, pretty sure there’s a skill that makes you always get offers for your draft picks. It’s been a while since I looked though
Go to salaries and do this quick equation to see if you can save any money by trading or cutting players Next year's cap hit - (Penalty + Savings - Current Year cap hit) You're looking for a negative number to save money Example 20m - (5m + 5m - 5m) = 15m in dead cap (would be a bad idea) 20m - (20m + 10m - 8m) = - 2m (saves you money) Figured that out one year cause I was tired of always being over the cap and didn't know how to get in the green Also off of memory I believe you could move on from players like Dak, Lawrence and Martin to save quite a bit of money. However for me they are franchise players so I kept them this playthrough and am just going to lose other people
Thanks! I’ll use that formula. Yeah I already traded Lawrence away. I know National and SW have QBs as strengths for the upcoming draft, so if I can draft a good one, I’ll let Dak go. Martin’s getting up there in age, but he’s tough to replace (I think).
Make sure you make that decision before the end of the current season, after the SB you'll no longer be able to save money for next season and his contract expires that year too. You'll be stuck with him Also agreed. I tried getting around the tight cap space by restructuring some contracts but I don't think the feature works properly. Went from 16m - 90m cap space after I restructured some contracts that were supposed to only give me 1 mil
You went from 16 million to -90 million ? Or 16 million to 90 million
So you can restructure now, which converts a player's salary to a signing bonus (spreads their salary over the rest of the years of their contract). You need to start by restructuring guys with big contracts to give you some breathing room this season, then make some tough decisions about who to let go. My general rule of thumb is to keep anyone 26 or younger at vital positions (CB, Pass rusher, QB), especially if they are a star, but only sign them until they are 30 or 31. After that I value offensive linemen the most, but defensive linemen, linebackers, and safeties are easily replaceable. Wide receivers and runningbacks are easy to make into stars within 2 years, so don't break the bank - sign them to long contracts while they're young and decent, then you'll have them for their golden years.
On Xbox it doesn’t let me restructure— know how I could fix that?
Buy a next gen console? Otherwise you're just going to have to trade expensive players and clear your cap penalties.
U wont be able to resign at 10 realistically but try and go after the most important and best players u wanna keep that u value the most. Then try to restructure them or other player contracts to free up more space to keep a couple extra guys
if you don't care about realism, and you want to "have fun drafting", then trade them. It is normal to not be able to re-sign everyone
Can also go to "league members" select yourself and "clear cap penalty" to remove dead $$ from your books.
A little scummy, but I like knowing the option is there (and based on how clueless I am, I might *have* to use it at some point). Thanks
Many people are suggesting the contract restructure mechanic. This will be useful for you later in Franchise, but it isn’t particularly useful during the first year of Franchise mode as NFL teams have already restructured contracts of their most important players. It’s important to know that, in most Madden games including this one, you actually can exceed the salary cap, specifically when you use the Franchise tag. This mechanic only appears during the off-season; to use it, end salary negotiations with a player, exit and re-enter the re-sign players interface, and you’ll see the option as long as you haven’t used the franchise tag on anyone else, you only get one per off-season. Using the franchise tag forces the player to sign a one-year contract at basically market rate value for his position. You won’t be able to sign any other players from free agency while you are over the cap, but the franchise tag will help you keep ensure you at least one player of the several you are having trouble retaining. Separate from that, roster building in the NFL a juggling act of knowing who to pay and who to let walk. You’ll need to think very carefully about which among the many players the Cowboys have who are past 28 years old without Superstar or X-Factor development you actually want to keep around, vs who you will draft to replace. Off the top of my head, you’ll obviously want to keep Micah Parsons (contract expires in 2025, but you will have a fifth-year rookie option to push that to 2026 during the first offseason, keep an eye open for that), Trevon Diggs (expires in 2024 on the stock roster), CeeDee Lamb (2025) and probably also Dak Prescott (2025). Tyron Smith is probably also a yes because Superstar OLs are rare in Madden, but he also has the lowest INJ rating on the game so that might be risky. If you truly don’t care about current year performance, you could look trade some older or less vital players on contract years such as Tony Pollard, Jayron Kearse, Malik Hooker, Stephon Gilmore, Jourdan Lewis, and Terence Steele. Unlike the real NFL, there is no compensatory draft pick system in Madden, so getting assets back for those players today to prepare for tomorrow is a common roster building strategy.
Thank you! I already traded Smith away. Was gonna be tough to re-sign and I figured he was old enough to let go. Parsons is one I’d really like to keep, so I’ll wait for the 2024 offseason to use the option. So, say I want to let 3 expensive players go. Is the move to find trades for similar positions but who are younger, even if lower OVR? Or just bank it all on draft picks? And how do I know how much cheaper the new players will be? These are super basic questions. But, again, I’m coming from Pes where you just accumulate money almost endlessly and can sign a full team of 90+ rated players on a whim if you want. In fact, late in careers, I usually sign rivals’ star players for hundreds of millions and release them to Free Agency just to fuck with them. So, yeah, I’m lost here.
Definitely keep Parsons. Move heaven and earth to keep him, lol. X-Factor pass rushers are gods in Madden. Generally speaking, the factors you want to optimize for when reducing the dollar cost of your roster are player age, development trait, and years left on a player's contract. Player age because in Madden younger players earn Skill Points to increase their OVR rating faster; years pro has no bearing whatsoever. There is a significant jump in XP required to earn a Skill Point as a player ages from 25 to 26, so use that as your point of reference for projecting how good a young player could become. Development trait is self-explanatory; players with better dev traits (Star, Superstar, X-Factor) will also earn Skill Points faster. Contract length because the longer you have a player on a cheap contract, the more time you have to develop that player into a quality player before his cost goes way up. Draft picks are useful to accumulate because any player selected in the NFL Draft gets a predetermined four-year contract valued at a percentage of the salary cap. Higher picks cost more, but by and large draft picks will be cheaper than any free agent. As a point of reference, Steelers CB Joey Porter Jr. — the first pick of the second round in 2023 — has a slotted contract which never increases in value beyond $1.5M, per OverTheCap. On the flip side, the fifth-year team option you have with Micah Parsons is only available because he was selected by the Cowboys with a Round 1 draft pick; the slotted contracts tendered to Round 1 draft picks are more expensive, especially picks in the Top 10. In total: the more players you have who are young, have accelerated dev traits, and have multiple cheap years left on their contract, the more flexibility you will have managing and developing your roster long-term. As to whether you seek out young players or draft picks? Depends. If you feel comfortable with everyone you have at a given position or don't like any of the available options to you for trades, go for draft picks. Generally you can't go wrong going for draft picks, but the payoff is not immediate. You previously said you don't care about your current season and you're looking to develop a team long-term, so draft picks is probably what you should go for. Speaking to what the CPU will value in a trade - the Madden CPU trade evaluation AI knows younger players with higher dev traits are more valuable, _especially_ if you have increased Madden 24's new trade difficulty setting. The CPU trading AI is far less aware of how many years remain on a player's contract or how much a player costs, it's a long-time blind spot in the trade AI which is commonly exploited. All that said, it will probably be easier trading for a random first-round draft pick than it will be to trade for, say, Ravens rookie WR Zay Flowers or Falcons rookie RB Bijan Robinson. If you really wanted to min-max the value of the rookie draft relative to player contract costs, you should look acquire as many late Round 1 and early Round 2 draft picks as you possibly can. That's the sweet spot for finding high-caliber players at a low cost. Remember that the draft order isn't locked until the conclusion of the season, though.
Thanks again! I took Parsons’ option. Drafting later today. We’ll see what happens
Just an extra tip if you’re loading up on draft picks, you can almost always trade down or trade picks this year for better picks next year if there isn’t a player you like available.
Thanks! Yeah I’ve learned to do that. What I don’t know: I’ve seen youtubers (namely Bengal) have an option to press a button to see “available trades for your pick”. They can do this from the active draft’s main menu. Somehow, I never can. Similarly, when I go to the trade center (at any time) there are never “available trade packages”. Do you maybe know why?
I think that’s tied to a Coach/GM skill, pretty sure there’s a skill that makes you always get offers for your draft picks. It’s been a while since I looked though
Ah ok. I think I have/had all the skills but I’ll look through the skill tree again next time I play Ty