Need Help W/ Salary Cap Situation (please!)

[TennesseeVols#1]

Man, i know some of you have been in this following situation before. it's one of the only reasons why I cant stand madden, the damn salary cap BS. Really, i need to know what I can do, to solve this problem, w/o starting a new franchise, cause i've accomplished too much with San diego, gates, and tomlinson. here's my situation:

Offseason comes after 1st season with SD. I have $21.9m worth of cap room and i'm quite eager to draft new players and sign some free agents. after the damn restricted free agent signings & player re-signings, i'm left with a measly $3.01m of cap room. I go to the draft, acquire some players for the positions i need. then here's when the problem occurs.... I only have enough cap room to sign my FIRST pick. after wards, i'm left with like -XXXk amount of cap room, which therefore means I have no room to sign any free agents. so i'm thinking, ah, no big deal right? well, i skip training camp as a result of not enough players in certain positions. then i try to play my first preseason game, and bam! the game is saying I have too few players at the TE, FB, and SS positions, and to sign some players. then the "SD chargers have insufficient cap room" crap comes up. so if you look at it, i'm stuck: I cant sign anyone because i have negative cap room, and I cant play because i dont have enough players in the above positions TO PLAY! also, i dont have enough back up players to release, to MAKE cap room, because then what ever position I try to release someone from will result in another "below min. roster requirements" crap, which will therefore cause a never ending circle of "below roster req." Maybe its because i gave certain players too big of a contract to keep from hearing them *****.i dont know, i'm so lost and confused, it aint funny. Someone please tell me what I can do. thanks a whole lot.

[BuccaneersFan20]

I'd give some of your players longer contracts that will save you money or release some players and sign free agents that cost less... That works for me.

[TennesseeVols#1]

I'd give some of your players longer contracts that will save you money or release some players and sign free agents that cost less... That works for me.
my resources are limited, it is physically impossible for me to do the above. i might just hafta start a new franchise. :mad: anybody else?

[SbrrTooth]

Release some overly paid players and get some young ones who will develop and cost a lot less. Can't have a superbowl every year, sometimes you have to rebuild your team with new talent.

[AdamMost]

I too have had this problem. I just released a couple of players.
I released Trent Greene (i'm playing as KC) and that free'd up a ton. I haven't had a problem since. He retired the next year too so I guess it worked out better...

[baseballtr7]

ok, i was in ur exact same situation. before you do this, it might take awhile, and it could be considered "cheap"

look for decent cheap players (young rookies) to replace your more expensive players. (if you signed Ty Law, then i would trade him for Carlos Rodgers of the Redskins). While making these moves, see if you can get some draftpicks.
This might require you to get rid of your most likely beloved Ladanian Tomlinson. Your backup (Chatman) is a good back. Also see if you can get Frank Gore of the 49ers, he'll become one of the elite backs in time.

you will be in cap trouble for a long time with all the cap penalties you are going to have, and you will probably be moved out of San Diego, but your franchise will live on.


OR there should be an option for the CPU to do it for you.


i eventually started over and tried not to make too many transactions.

[Precarious42]

Do you have a lot of cap penalties?? If you do then you can go to the "My Team" section and on X-box press the Y button to clear cap penalties. Your team's prestige takes a major hit, but it is worth it in those kind of situations.

If not, you have too many high paid players and you need to release some. You might be able to get away with releasing a high salaried player and bring him back for less money. Try it out. If you do end up releasing some players and you have lots of cap penalties, you can try the thing above to remove them. It may make it harder to sign some free agents.

Hopefully this will help.

[TennesseeVols#1]

thanks to yall for helping me out. i eventually just ended up giving a couple of my O-lineman longer contracts, so that the cap room would go up. i must say, it worked :cool: . i raised enough to sign the FB (C. fuamatu ma) and SS (rookie SS #21) that was required. so, i didnt have to get rid of LT, A. gates, or anyone. thanks again yall. peace

[Elandil Eldaron]

Like the real NFL, if you want to make a dynasty and not rebuild everything every 3 year, you have to cut some players, redo some contract, sign young talent.
Like New England is doing, you have to keep some Vet that doesn't cost much mainly your franchise Vet, Key players, and just cut some of the others, even if is a probowler.
In my year 3 franchise with the Niners, i had to cut (and take some cap penalties) 2 of my starters and proBowler in Plummer and Parrish. Now i have some cap space, younger players filling well, and i could resign most of my Oline for a long time.
But it's up to you, and that's the fun of the game, to know where your franchise is heading, and if you want to build your franchise around some players or on one side of the ball and so on. With the cap, it's almost impossible to have a dream team, with veterans all in the 95+ OVR.

[MLB58]

What you described is the main reason I run my franchise all screwy. I like to find players I like and stick with them until they retire. The salary cap doesn't let you do this. Maybe a good thing is real life, but I hate having to get rid of guys I like to make cap room.

I get around this in two ways. One is carrying only 46 guys so you can pay a little more for each player. The other is constantly restructuring contracts. Even so, if it's like 2005, I'll have to let some beloved veterans go every 7-8 years. But at least it's not every year, and it's usually minimal.

Right now I am only in year 3 of my franchise and I have tons of cap room because I've signed a lot of rookies over the past 2 offseasons. But when it comes around that they progress to being really good players they will become very expensive, and that's when things get tricky.

[TheShadow7478]

" With the cap, it's almost impossible to have a dream team, with veterans all in the 95+ OVR."

I put a 15% cap restriction on myself, meaning I must always have 15% left, with that I finally have had less than 10 mil left. I keep a 94+ overall team rating consistently. THis is the first franchise I have done with a 15% cap restriction, without it franchise is too easy (in coach mode with trading and free agency restrictions and limited training camp). Now I am doing pure sim, we shall see if this makes it harder. Franchises are easy for the first 6 or 7 years then salaries start really going up and cap increases slow down. We shall see how challenging it gets then.

[mstaple]

Try not to get hung up on too many people as "untouchable". I trade my top players every few years for high draft picks. I end up with 10 draft picks in the first 100 picks. Usually it is the best draft class and I have around 6 guys at 80 or higher and they usually progress really quickly. I might also end up with a FB or S at 90 or higher when drafting that high but it is usually from my NCAA Football 06 drafts.

As for your problem after the daft I would try to trade some high paying guys for some younger guys. Maybe a one player for two or three so you can fill your holes. Hope this helps.

[Elandil Eldaron]

" With the cap, it's almost impossible to have a dream team, with veterans all in the 95+ OVR."

I put a 15% cap restriction on myself, meaning I must always have 15% left, with that I finally have had less than 10 mil left. I keep a 94+ overall team rating consistently. THis is the first franchise I have done with a 15% cap restriction, without it franchise is too easy (in coach mode with trading and free agency restrictions and limited training camp). Now I am doing pure sim, we shall see if this makes it harder. Franchises are easy for the first 6 or 7 years then salaries start really going up and cap increases slow down. We shall see how challenging it gets then.

Well what i was trying to say, is that it's not impossible to have a 95+ OVR team, but it's almost impossible to have a 95+ OVR team while keeping the same players year in and year out. You can do it, but you need to trick a little bit like MLB58 is doing, having a 46 players roster.
I play with the injuries sliders a little bit up, so i end up with much injuries (i would say as much than in the NFL), so i have to have decent back up or winning is gonna be real hard (like playing your 3rd QB, and 4th RB).
Everyone is playing his own way in Madden, and i understand we doesn't experience the same game sometimes. My main problem with the cap, is that i have injuries to my starters, and usually my back ups fill in very well and of course progress, which makes them better and of course more expensive to resign. So each year i really have a lot of work with the cap, redo contract, cut players, trade some, but of course doing all this, my team is still competitive because i sign and keep some of the key players, or try to groom young players that are gonna start someday when i need them.
So like i have said, last year, i had to cut 2 pro bowlers (Plummer CB 97 ovr, Parrish SS 99 ovr), now my secondary isn't that good, but quite younger. And trade Snyder a young LG ovr 91 who was an unhappy back up.

[samnc3]

Drop everyone who's not being paid a bonus (usually ones you've traded for). This will avoid cap penalties. Then re-sign the important ones with huge bonuses to minimize cost effect of the salary.

[kjm]

How about when the CPU is above the cap and you are unable to clear the cap then what do you do ??

[realhawker]

Man, i know some of you have been in this following situation before. it's one of the only reasons why I cant stand madden, the damn salary cap BS. Really, i need to know what I can do, to solve this problem, w/o starting a new franchise, cause i've accomplished too much with San diego, gates, and tomlinson. here's my situation:

Offseason comes after 1st season with SD. I have $21.9m worth of cap room and i'm quite eager to draft new players and sign some free agents. after the damn restricted free agent signings & player re-signings, i'm left with a measly $3.01m of cap room. I go to the draft, acquire some players for the positions i need. then here's when the problem occurs.... I only have enough cap room to sign my FIRST pick. after wards, i'm left with like -XXXk amount of cap room, which therefore means I have no room to sign any free agents. so i'm thinking, ah, no big deal right? well, i skip training camp as a result of not enough players in certain positions. then i try to play my first preseason game, and bam! the game is saying I have too few players at the TE, FB, and SS positions, and to sign some players. then the "SD chargers have insufficient cap room" crap comes up. so if you look at it, i'm stuck: I cant sign anyone because i have negative cap room, and I cant play because i dont have enough players in the above positions TO PLAY! also, i dont have enough back up players to release, to MAKE cap room, because then what ever position I try to release someone from will result in another "below min. roster requirements" crap, which will therefore cause a never ending circle of "below roster req." Maybe its because i gave certain players too big of a contract to keep from hearing them *****.i dont know, i'm so lost and confused, it aint funny. Someone please tell me what I can do. thanks a whole lot.


In the PC version, in the PDA screen you can reset cap penalties!!!