Overcap if starting with real rosters...how to fix?

[andyhdz]

So I can't enforce the strict cap rule because then the AI thinks it's perfectly fine to release Patrick Mahomes and Dak Prescott to get under the cap. Instead I am enforcing the cap but I raised the cap to the absolute minimum (~310 million) so everyone is under the cap and will slowly lower it each season. However my question is what if I start a new season and not enforce a strict cap and start with teams over the cap (basically the default). Will the AI lower the team salaries gradually over the years to try and get under the cap or will they not even care and spend whatever they want? I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this before jumping deep into my career.

[TripLykely]

What I did was drop the max starting salaries for all positions other than FB, K, P by 10m and QB by 20m. As soon as the league is created I enable force strict cap, add a drop and retirement penalty then bump all salary maxes back to default. Everyone signed or resigned from that point forward will be expensive and even out in a few seasons. Not ideal but it works long term and prevents the wonky cuts

[brooks_piggott]

6.0.2 version should start everyone off at lower salaries when doing a creation draft and should help avoid this issue.

[andyhdz]

Yes but my question is not about a creation draft but one where the rosters are already set and it begins with free agency. A lot of teams start over the cap in this scenario.

[brooks_piggott]

yes, some of the teams when you start with default rosters start over the cap. We used a combination of guaranteed money and yearly contract value to try and assign contracts to players, but it doesn't always work well. And the teams start with 70+ players so the overall team salaries are a bit inflated and come down once players get cut. Raising your salary cap to 310 mil is a good idea so that teams will only have to make minor cuts to get under and then you can gradually lower it from season to season until it equalizes. Or raise the drop penalty so that the cpu factors it in more and won't drop high priced players as much.