Hey everyone,

Does anyone know how to predict a rookie contract (let's say Option 4 -- year 1 cap hit) based purely on draft position & current year salary cap? Or if position is a factor too....I'm looking for a way to calculate this with some degree of position, so it's easy to see what your cap situation ends up looking like *if* you gain or lose certain draft picks, etc.

its always seemed random to me. However, they will sign option #4 every time.

If you keep trying long enough, eventually they'll sign what you wan them to sign, but every now or then it will mean you'll have to keep on trying several games into the regular season.

Ah, yeah...but what I meant was not predicting whether or not they'll sign, I mean more of predicting how much signing a certain draft slot in a given year will cost.

Example:

Year is 2025. Cap is 195 million. You want to make a move up to get the 1.5 overall pick, but you're not sure you have the cap space to sign him.

It'd be great if you could know with some precision how much $$ that rookie will ask for after you draft him.

I always look at what the guy got the year before in that slot to get a general idea.

Ah.... Totally missed what you were looking at.

If you're into the off-season already, there's the trade information screen that gives you an exact guidance on what that pick would cost if you sign that player to one of the four options available. Which one of the four I'm not sure yet, but from annecdotal experience it's neither the most expensive one nor the cheapest one. For those with only two options, I think it's the most expensive one, but I'm not 100% on that.

Oh, really, during Early FA? I'd never noticed that! I'll look into it. See if I can figure out a formula of sorts from there. Muchos thanks! :)

I do this, personally.

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - The FOF2K7 Hundred Little Things Thread. (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showpost.php?p=1633391&postcount=4)

Ah.... Totally missed what you were looking at.

If you're into the off-season already, there's the trade information screen that gives you an exact guidance on what that pick would cost if you sign that player to one of the four options available. Which one of the four I'm not sure yet, but from annecdotal experience it's neither the most expensive one nor the cheapest one. For those with only two options, I think it's the most expensive one, but I'm not 100% on that.Looking at my current IHOF rookies, the calculated cost for them in some cases was equal to the minimum contract offer I could make:
For my 4th round pick I offered the shorter (3yr) cheaper contract and that matched the 'expected cap cost'.
For my 5th round picks I offered the cheaper contract and that matched the 'expected cap cost'.
For my 6th round picks I offered the cheaper contract and that matched the 'expected cap cost'.
For my 7th round picks I offered the cheaper contract and that did not match the 'expected cap cost', the expected cost corresponded with the more expensive option.

I did some additional (unintended) testing on this front and what I saw is that every pick that I examinded, the lowest cap figure in the two or four options matches exactly what the pre-set 'cap cost' was set at. Ignoring the 7th round for a bit, all those picks will get more than minsal salary and some bonus money, which means they're always more expensive than a minsal rookie and only the 6th rounders are about equal to a minsal minbonus veteran (with veteran cap figure reduction).