Drop Player Penalty

[ZootMurph]

There should be more choices here. Most importantly, WHEN you drop a player should figure in to the penalty.

1) There should be NO penalties before Preseason starts. You bring people in, try them out, and see what happens.
2) During Preseason, there should be an ACTIVE roster limit of 60... again, to give players a chance to show their stuff in the preseason to allow teams to make choices. There should be a choice for penalty for dropping players through preseason. Frankly, I think it should, again, be none, but for the most part you'll be dropping 1 year free agents and young guys not getting paid much, so it's not critical. Occasionally, a veteran will lose their job and you'll take a little hit, but it shouldn't be so bad. Most times, you can either put the expensive players on the practice squad to save you from paying a huge penalty, or trade them. So, while I think offseason cuts and preseason cuts are the same, not everyone agrees so a Preseason cut penalty should be available option.
3) Regular season cuts are where players are guaranteed money. If you had contacts with guaranteed money, then you wouldn't need this at all, in any form, because teams would be responsible for guaranteed money when cutting players and that IS the penalty. However, as that's not the current case, this is where you need the Regular Season Cut Penalty. But this is where Cap Space should take effect. Whether a hard cap or not, cap should not be considered until the season begins. In this vein, you should have a 'Regular Season Start Phase' involved where teams cut players to make roster and cap limits. This way, if they miscalculate, they get an opportunity to clean it up in the first week (before playing games solo, or in the first week's sim in multi).

Just my two cents. In solo, I have force strict cap off and the cap very high, because the computer cannot keep up with a cap and it is far too easy in solo with a lower cap and forcing the cap... I pick up great players every season in week 1 for minimum.

Also, I don't know what algorithms you have in place for contracts, but I think at different times during free agency players should begin to reduce their asking price... depending on how much interest they have. A good player with no interest is obviously asking for too much, and any good agent will get him to reduce his price. Too often in solo I see guys never signed before training camp and they are easily picked up for minimum wage. It would give the AI a better chance at grabbing some good players cheaper if this was the case.