Free-agents (FA) are players who do not belong to a team. You can add them to your team by agreeing to a contract with them. They can be found using the Player Search tool.
Following are some high-level basics about how Free-Agency works:
In some cases, when looking at the contract box for a free-agent, you will see a section labeled “Contract decision on”. If so, you will need to wait until that date and time for the player to decide between your offer and any offers from other teams.
You will ALWAYS need to wait between 30 and 45 minutes for a free-agent to make a decision. This is to give you the chance to change your mind before a player accepts your offer.
If your offer is accepted by the free-agent they are immediately placed on your pending roster. From there it is your responsibility to integrate them into your team.
More about Rosters.
Each free-agent projects how many years they expect to be productive, and what they expect their AAV to be over that duration.
Each free-agent bases their AAV on current salaries of comparable players. Generally, the more impactful a player, the higher the requested salary.
Each free-agent bases their contract length on how long the believe they will be productive. Generally, the younger and more impactful the player, the longer the requested contract.
As League days pass without offers, a free-agent will lower the demands for contract length and salary amount, until finally (after many days) they arrive at settling for a 1-year, $250K offer.
Generally (with some caveats below), a free-agent agrees to sign with the team that offers the highest PAAV. This can be somewhat complex, so here’s a practical example:
Player A is asking for 4 years @ $8M:
Team Z offers 2 years @ $12M:
Team Y offers 4 years @ $10.5M:
Team X offers 1 year @ $15M:
As a result Player A ranks the offers as follows:
| Rank | Team | Offer | Potential 4-Year Earnings | PAAV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Team Y | 4 years @ $10.5M | $42.0M | $10.5M |
| 2 | Team Z | 2 years @ $12M | $40.0M | $10.0M |
| 3 | Team X | 1 year @ $15.0M | $39.0M | $9.75M |
Teams bidding on a free-agent are placed in two buckets:
If there are any right-sized payroll offers, the best PAAV offer will be awarded from that bucket. Otherwise, the best PAAV from the out-sized bucket will be awarded.
Owner reputation is factored into a free-agent offer by adjusting the PAAV. A poor reputation decreases the PAAV of a team’s offer, while a high reputation increases the PAAV.
If a team isn’t careful, this can become a downward spiral, where placing increasingly irresponsible offers to overcome a poor reputation only serves to further decrease the reputation.
More about Owner Reputation.
All offers must satisfy the basic demands of the free-agent. For example, if a player wants 4 years @ $8M, and you offer 1 year at $1M, your offer will simply be declined, even if it’s the only offer.
Repeated unacceptable offers will both decrease your owner reputation AND block any future bids for the same free-agent.
Any contract exceeding $12.5M automatically trigger a luxury tax, as does a team payroll above $125M.
More about the Luxury Tax.
More league dates.